Anything But Ordinary
by OptimisticLivvy
Summary: When Melanie Bethany Striker met the Doctor, she didn't expect planets of eternal darkness, River Song, events that if changed cause paradoxes and most of all... love? And she doesn't understand why a man like the Doctor is so lonely all the time, when he's got so many who care for him. If anything, the Doctor wonders why Melanie feels lonely too. Series 6 AU. Doctor/OC
1. A New Face

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, the BBC does.**

**Hello there, old readers and new ones! I decided to rewrite Anything But Ordinary, because quite frankly... it's not that great. However it's still up for the time being. I've decided I'll take that one down in December this year. Don't ask why December, I just am XD**

**It's pretty obvious how much of an improvement this first chapter is. Enjoy!**

* * *

The vortex manipulator wasn't exactly a fun way to travel, but it was the only way to travel, for the time being. Melanie still couldn't get a hang of landing properly, so Jack had to help her up, as he had done countless of times before. Melanie wouldn't say she was being looked after by him, considering the fact she was twenty two, but she felt more like a companion to him.

At other times, a bit of a nuisance.

"You okay?" Jack asked, after helping her up. Melanie dusted herself off.

"You would think that after six months of this, I would have finally managed to land properly now..."

"Then I guess it's a good thing that we are going for a drink," he gave her his cheeky grin as they began walking.

"Exactly. Um... what year are we in?"

"Somewhere in the fifty-first century."

"We're going to that bar again, aren't we? The one you nearly got banned from last month?" she scolded him ever so slightly.

"Maybe. But it's like home to me!"

"Every single bar with some form of good-looking being is home to you. I'm not saying that I'm good-looking, but you _did_ pick me up in a bar."

"Only because you obviously wanted to know more," Jack winked as he held open the door for Melanie and they entered the bar.

"Alright, alright, I surrender!" Melanie held up her hands in defeat, laughing a little. "I was honestly still having a bit of trouble with the mind blocking... I'm twenty one, but I still can't do it. I should have been able to do it by the time I was fifteen, but..." she shrugged as they sat down at a table near the music stand, where a band was playing. Melanie cocked her head to the side as she listened to them.

"Do you know what would be amusing?"

"What?" replied Jack.

"If I got them to play the cantina music from _Star Wars_."

"Do you know what I think would be amusing?"

"What?"

"If you went up there and-"

"No, bitch, _no_. That is the end of the subject matter. How many times do I have to tell you that I just have an _interest_ in the subject, and took it up as a hobby to get rid of the pain? Now go buy me a drink. I don't really care what..." Melanie told Jack.

It was his turn to hold his hands up in surrender and so he went up to the bar and came back a few minutes later with two drinks. Melanie took hers and wondered what the bright red liquid was. She sniffed it and it smelt sweet. Yet one sip of it told her that it was bitter and was most likely some strong alcohol with red food colouring.

Jack laughed at the expression on her face.

"Every time..."

Melanie rolled her eyes up at him, then, because she was sitting in the chair that had a good view of the door, noticed three newcomers enter the bar: A man in a tweed suit and bow tie, a woman with flaming red hair, and an awkward looking man, wearing a coat that resembled a life jacket.

"Hey, check out bow tie over there," she giggled. Jack looked round and then smirked.

"Cute, but not really my type."

It seemed as if bow tie had noticed Jack looking, and he stopped and stared, his mouth open slightly. Jack turned back round hastily and faced Melanie.

"You. His mind. _Now_," he commanded her. Melanie nodded and then took one quick glance at bow tie and then she concentrated hard enough so that she could read his thoughts.

"_What is Captain Jack Harkness doing with that woman over there? Actually, what is he even doing here at all?"_

The man came over to them, his friends following a little confused.

"I think he knows you," Melanie whispered before they arrived and pulled up a few chairs, and clustered around the table.

"Captain Jack Harkness... the last time I same was actually in this very bar."

"Doctor?" Jack said in disbelief.

"Got it in one!"

"He said you were cute," Melanie told the Doctor. The Doctor raised an eyebrow and turned to her.

"And who are you?"

"Melanie Striker. My full name is Melanie Bethany Striker and I got referred to like that in school if a teacher was talking about me to another."

"And I know _exactly_ how you managed that. You can't fool me," the Doctor gave a little smug grin.

"Bow tie's good," Melanie murmured to Jack.

"Wait a minute... have I missed something here?" interjected the red head.

"I think we have," said the awkward one.

"You either missed something, or are just _really_ slow on the uptake," Melanie frowned ever so slightly, a little confused herself. "Who are you two?"

"Amy and Rory Pond," the Doctor said quite happily.

"That's not how it works..." mumbled Rory. Melanie's mouth twitched, almost smiling.

"What's your surname then?" Melanie asked him.

"Williams."

"Oh bow tie... you're really not from Earth, are you?"

"What gave it away?" the Doctor was curious. "Because you're not from around here either."

"Your odd sense in fashion."

"You were poking around in my head."

"Again! We're still missing something here!" said Amy, a little annoyed.

"She's a mind reader, Amy..." there was a hint of a grin on his face.

"Doctor... as much as it is great to see you again," began Jack, interrupting the little conversation. "Exactly what are you doing here?"

"TARDIS brought us here by accident and Amy pointed out this place and wanted a drink, although I told that it was not a good idea for her to be drinking alcohol from the 31st century considering how much stronger it is. Either way we still came in here and then I saw your friend giggling at me, and she decided to poke around in my head."

"Because I was curious as to why you were over there looking like you waiting for-"

"I don't want to know any more!" the Doctor held his hands up, slowly turning red. Jack smirked. "But it's good that you haven't changed a bit."

"I suppose you haven't changed much either, although the dress sense is just..." Jack shook his head, whilst the Doctor looked offended.

"Bow ties are _cool_."

"No. But I do approve of those," Jack leaned across the table and pinged one of the Doctor's braces.

"Ow!"

"Um, whilst you two have been flirting, I came up with a question," Melanie said.

"Fire away," said the Doctor, rubbing his chest.

"What's a TARDIS?"

"It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

"So it's a time machine?"

"That's bigger on the inside!" said Amy. "Seriously, you should see it – it's amazing, and kind of overwhelming when you go in for the first time. Not that it fazed stupid face here," she nudged Rory in the arm.

"Well, I had done research after the Prisoner Zero incident," said Rory, matter-of-factly.

"So... time and space..." Melanie pondered. "Does that mean any time, anywhere? Not just Earth, for instance..."

"Hey!" Jack knew was she was getting at but she simply rolled her eyes.

"Can I... y'know... have a look at it?"

"You want to have a look at my TARDIS? Well I don't see any problem with that. Oh Jack, it has... _changed_ a bit since the last time you were in it."

"Then shall we go and have a look?" the Doctor stood up, the rest of them doing the same and following him out of the bar, and towards a little blue box, resting under a tree. Melanie could have laughed, but instead she just surveyed it with amusement.

"Bit small," she joked. "Yes, I know that it is bigger on the inside..."

The Doctor unlocked the door, allowing Amy, Rory and Jack through first, before letting Melanie in with a knowing look on his face. As she walked inside, the only thing she could do was stop in shock.

In her eyes, it was beautiful. And of course large. The lights made everything have a golden glow to it and the thing in the middle – she was unsure of what it was – had an array of buttons and levers on it, including taps... it was all wonderfully random.

She smiled. She liked it.

"So anywhere in the universe?" Melanie moved so the Doctor could come inside.

"Yes! Anywhere in the universe, depending on whether she wants to take us there?"

"She?"

"The TARDIS is a she," Rory called over to them.

"Oh..."

"Is there something wrong with that?" the Doctor asked her.

"No, it's just a new level for me. And I've spent the past few months with Jack Harkness."

The Doctor grinned at her.

"That you have! Now, the universe... where do you want to start?"

"I honestly don't mind. Isn't there too much to choose from?"

"Then we shall have to select randomly," the Doctor headed up to the area with all the levers and buttons, pushing some and pulling others, telling everyone to hold onto something. Melanie looked around and then held onto the railings behind her, before hearing a strange groaning and whirring noise, before everything began to shake and tilt, as she held on to the railings for dear life.

Soon enough, all the commotion stopped, and they were all able to let go of what they were holding onto, Melanie a little after the rest, considering she wasn't as experienced as they were.

"Go on," the Doctor nodded towards the door. Melanie gave the others a quick glance before going over to the doors and opening them, wincing as bright sunlight fell upon her eyes. She stepped out onto the new surface, which was dry and cracked.

Shielding her eyes, Melanie looked directly in front of her to find that someone was pointing a gun directly at her forehead, pretty much point blanc.

"Don't move," the person holding it said.

* * *

**Because I like the suspense of it all.**

**Review away, my lovelies :)**


	2. Aeternae Tenebrae

**Disclaimer: I wish I owned Doctor Who...**

**Have you lot ever watched the film _Pitch Black_? It's part of _The Chronicles of Riddick_ and I have to say, it's very good, but very very scary! I'm only asking this because this little adventure arc is inspired by that. So if you have watched it, you'll understand what bits and pieces were inspired from it. If you haven't watched it, I recommend you do! Although it may leave you a bit scared of the dark XD**

**Anyways, I'll stop rambling to let you read on :)**

* * *

It had all gone so terribly, terribly wrong.

There was nothing left to do now but run. Run back to the ruins, get the others and just get out of there as fast as possible. But Jack was still in the cliffs, buying them some time. They would have to come back for him when they had the TARDIS.

The Doctor's only comfort was Melanie's running footsteps next to his. It was absolutely pitch black, so they couldn't see each other, despite being right next to each other. If only the others had just _listened_ to him, they wouldn't have gotten into that situation.

But no, they were too stubborn, and then they were irritated by the fact the Doctor had lied to them. Now the remaining two who had been told to go to the cliffs were running from the creatures, and the approaching sand storm. They were insane for trying to outrun it, but unfortunately their means of transport had been taken over by the creatures...

Melanie was slowing down though. They had been running so fast and now she was tired, unable to keep up. The Doctor managed to grab her hand and keep pulling her along with him, but this resulted in her slowing him down.

The few creatures that were following them and the sandstorm were nearly upon them. The Doctor then put his arm around Melanie's waist and then launched them to the ground, just in time as the creatures jumped for them and the storm finally hit them...

* * *

**12 Hours Earlier**

Melanie stood there stunned, trying to ignore the fact that someone was pointing a weapon at her.

"Doctor... Jack..." she called back uncertainly. Soon enough, they had come out along with Amy and Rory, worried by the sight in front of them.

"If you could put the gun down, that would be nice. And if you don't, well I'll still have the moral high ground," said the Doctor, looking at the woman who was holding the gun to Melanie's forehead.

"Why should I put it down?" the woman turned the gun on him. "Who are you? Are you spies? Either way, you shouldn't be here. This is a classified expedition, what are you doing here?"

"We're not spies..." the Doctor frowned slightly. "In fact, what's so classified about this expedition for there to even _be_ spies?"

"Doesn't matter," the gun was lowered. "Your name?"

"John Smith. We were actually sent here after you," the Doctor got something out of his pocket and showed it to the woman before putting it away again. "I'm sorry, I don't think we were told who you were?"

"Natasha Coulter. There's not _just_ me. There's others here on Aeternae Tenebrae as well," she turned and began walking away from the TARDIS, the rest of them following her.

They managed to get a proper look around the place and found it was just simply ruins, that led out to an impressive looking space craft which sat upon a vast expanse of desert. As they walked, the newcomers couldn't help but notice the blazing heat.

"Exactly what is this expedition all about then?" Jack asked when they were led into one of the ruins, in which there were four other people, set up with hi-tech equipment and computers.

"You were sent after us, shouldn't you know about it?" Natasha replied, suspiciously.

"He's in charge," Jack pointed at the Doctor.

"Ahh yes. Um... I told Melanie incase I forgot."

"Right... err yes. So... Jack... they received a distress signal and so were sent out to investigate," Melanie said, quickly putting her mind reading into use. The Doctor understood this and gave a little smirk before smiling at Natasha, who became less suspicious.

"Yes..." she went over to one of the women at the computer. "Have you found the source yet?"

"Not yet... but we do know it's in the general area of the desert. Judging by the maps it's somewhere near some cliffs," the woman replied.

"I think I saw some a few miles out from where we landed," said a man, sitting on a chair in the corner. "Who are you lot?" he asked, gesturing to the Doctor.

"I'm John Smith. These are my... associates Jack Harkness, Amy Pond, Rory Williams and Melanie Striker."

"Captain Jack Harkness. I'm the pilot," he added on flirtatiously to Natasha.

"Jack..." the Doctor warned him in a low voice, before Natasha seemed to realise something.

"Hang on... you say your name is John Smith, but she," Natasha pointed at Melanie. "Called you 'Doctor.'"

"Because he's a doctor..." Melanie said. "And also because I just have a habit of calling him that," she lied. "We all do."

Before Natasha could say anything else, there was a beeping noise coming from one of the pieces of equipment and they all went over to see what it was.

"I do believe we've got the source," said a second man. "It's coming from under the cliffs."

"Good work, Jensen, I say half of us should go out there. We should get to the cliffs by sunset," said Natasha. "You and Clarice are with me as well as the Captain, the Doctor and Melanie. The rest of you stay here and keep in touch with your coms."

"Surely we're not walking there, are we?" asked the Doctor, as they left the ruin.

"No. It would take much longer to do so... we've been given a vehicle that's good at going across the desert terrain. It's very similar to those sorts of things that were so popular in the 21st century..." she replied.

They were led to the edge of the ruins, where a vehicle that resembled a safari truck stood, and the six of them climbed inside it, the woman named Clarice in the driver's seat. She started up the vehicle and off they went, driving through the blazing heat of the day.

The journey was long, but they had each other for company, mainly listening to Jack's adventurous tales.

"...And then it turned out to be a cactus!"

Everyone laughed at the ending, except for Melanie, who only let out a small chuckle. Jack picked up on this.

"I'm sorry, was that not funny enough for you?"

"This is the sixth time I've heard that story, and it loses it's novelty after a while."

"Don't get me started on this one," he told the others, earning him a whack over the head. "Ow! This is why I never end up telling people stories about _you_. You hurt me," Jack pouted at Melanie.

"You've tried that before and it didn't work."

"I thought I might as well give it a shot," he shrugged.

The sun was now quite low in the sky and they had nearly reached the cliffs. It had cooled down considerably, but there was an atmosphere among them that suggested they felt uncomfortable doing this particular task. Jensen had brought a piece of equipment which had a map on it, so they could find the source directly. They all got out of the vehicle and headed over into the cliffs, the light now rapidly disappearing.

The Doctor then pulled something out of his jacket, giving them light and they stared at him.

"Portable UV light," was all he said, before walking up the front next to Jensen, who was leading them to the source of the signal.

Melanie felt uneasy taking this path through the cliffs... she thought she had heard something move above them, and so she hurried to catch up with the Doctor, feeling less afraid walking with him, considering he had the largest source of light out of the six of them.

They walked for about twenty minutes, until Jensen stopped and crouched down, where there was a hole in front of him.

"It's coming from here," he said. "We should go down there."

"That's stupidly dangerous."

"Doctor Smith," Natasha said. "We have to find out what's down there otherwise there would be no point in this trip."

The Doctor looked at her.

"Alright then."

He passed Jensen the UV light and he dropped down into the hole. It was a short distance, so he didn't injure himself, however as he walked around, he began to speak to them through the coms.

"_Okay, so there's nothing really down here but a cavern, but there are tunnels leading off of it."_

"Do you think you can go and have a look around? Just follow the signal," Natasha said into her com.

"No, Jensen, before you do that, someone should be down there with you. It's still stupidly dangerous for him to be down there alone," the Doctor told Natasha.

"Fine. Jensen, I'm sending Clarice down there with you, then go and have a look around."

Clarice held her torch in her mouth as she lowered herself into the hole and dropped down.

"You alright down there?" Natasha said.

"_Yeah, we're fine,"_ came Clarice's voice. _"Although the signal's going haywire."_

"_It's everywhere, through every tunnel,_" said Jensen.

"Search for it. Split up and search."

Melanie looked at Jack and he had a look on his face that suggested something might be wrong.

"Then sending Clarice down there would be considered counter-productive!" Melanie told Natasha. "The Doctor's right, this is stupidly dangerous. It's night time and you don't even know what sort of signal you were following.

"Listen, this is my mission and you will all do as I say," Natasha rounded on her angrily. "If I tell them to split up, then you split up. Unless you want to be sent down there, I suggest you shut up."

"That means none of us are going to shut up about the choice you just made," said Jack.

"Then get down there then. We'll all go down there, how about tha-"

There came a loud scream, emitting from the com. There was too much noise going on, they couldn't make out the words that were being said. However it all stopped, and they were able to make sense of what Clarice was saying.

"_S-something just... oh god, something just got Jensen. There's something down here," _she was evidently trying not to let her voice break. The Doctor was standing there, shaking his head and muttering to himself, before he spoke to Natasha.

"I told you! You should have never let them go down there alone... or split up! Now we've all got to go down there now and find out what's going on, are you happy?"

Natasha pushed passed him angrily and dropped down into the hole. The Doctor looked at Jack and Melanie before following her. Then the last two went down as well.

They only had two torches between the four of them, and so they went in pairs - the Doctor with Natasha, Jack with Melanie.

Even as they walked through the tunnels in pairs, there was still the high amount of fear flowing through them. There was something down there, and they had no idea what it was.

"Jack..." Melanie whispered. "I heard something on the cliffs when we were walking."

"You're thinking it could be the same thing you heard moving?" he hissed in response.

"Yes. I'm so scared right now."

"So am I," Jack listened to any noises carefully. "Stop walking and press yourself against the wall."

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

Melanie moved so that she was against the smooth tunnel wall, and saw Jack do the same thing opposite her. He also turned off the torch so they were in complete darkness. Listening carefully, she heard scuffling sounds that seemed to be coming closer and closer to them.

She closed her eyes tight and held her breath as it came past them.

"_Please please please please..."_ was all she kept thinking, not realising she had projected that thought into Jack's mind, until she heard a response.

"_Stay calm. Don't be scared."_

The noise stopped.

All that could be heard was Jack's breathing opposite her.

Then there was a hissing sound, a crash and a cry of pain from Jack.

"Run! Melanie, run!" he said to her in a strangled voice.

She didn't need telling twice. She would have stayed to help Jack, but if she was unable to see him, that would have been hard. Melanie hoped he would be able to fight whatever it was off.

However, running was hard in the dark and she wasn't sure if she was going in the direction back to the cavern, or deeper into the tunnel. No matter what it was, she was running around blindly anyway, and she tripped over, falling flat on her face.

Melanie looked up when she heard scuffling and hissing, and knew that another of the creatures knew she was there. Once again, she closed her eyes and held her breath, staying absolutely still and hoping it wouldn't notice her.

It came closer to her, and she could feel it's breath on her face. Then she felt something wet moving up her face and she inwardly cringed, realising it had licked her face, as if it were tasting her. It hissed and just before it could do anything else, a beam of light crossed in front of Melanie and she was moved out of the way.

In that quick flash, she noticed something about the creature's face – it had no eyes.

It was blind.

It sensed by smell and taste.

There was a loud buzzing noise and a green light. Then the strangest sort of noise occurred and then when Melanie looked over at the creature, it was no longer moving.

"What the-" she started, before being helped up and seeing the friendly face of the Doctor. "What just happened?"

"After some extensive arguing with Natasha, I figured out that the signal they were following was a form of psychic one and partially ultrasonic, from these creatures. It's not dead, just unconscious."

"So what's that thing?" Melanie nodded to the long thing in his hand that had emitted the green, buzzing light.

"Sonic screwdriver. I used it to interfere with their brainwaves, but like I said, it's unconscious. Even if this was strong enough to kill it, I wouldn't do that anyway."

"Right... where's Natasha?"

"Here," the aforementioned woman said, coming out of another tunnel and stepping into the torchlight. "So, _Doctor Smith_, what just happened?"

"He made it go unconscious..." Melanie muttered.

"And you should really stop saying my name like that," the Doctor told Natasha, exasperated.

"Well, the fact you lied is all the more reason for me to do that!" she replied.

"Hang on, you told her that you weren't actually a doctor and that we weren't really sent after them but in fact just randomly came here? So is that what you were arguing about?"

Natasha's eyes widened.

"You _weren't_ sent here after us at all?"

The Doctor scratched the back of his head awkwardly and Melanie rounded on him.

"You didn't think to tell her that? You only just thought to tell her you're not actually a doctor?"

"Look, besides all of that, we're still alive, and I'm going to get us out of here. All of us. Well, all of us who are still alive... which reminds me, where's Jack?" the Doctor replied.

"One of those... creatures... it got him and he told me to run. That's how you managed to find me lying on the floor..."

"We'll fine him. Or he'll find us. Jack's a bit special."

"Can you _really_ get us out of here?" Natasha asked in disbelief.

"Yes, I can. I can find the rest of them and we can get back in time to warn the others of what's around here and then we can all leave and never come back."

"But why should I trust you?"

"She does have a _small_ point there..." Melanie said.

"You should trust me, because I'm the Doctor."

* * *

**Like? No like? I found this chapter rather fun to write! Anyways, next chapter we're going to see what Amy and Rory are up to.**

**-OptimisticLivvy**


	3. Little Fights

**Disclaimer: No Doctor Who for me...**

**Hello again! It's been a few days, but ahh well... exams and stuff happen. Which reminds me, I got an A in Latin, yay! And an A in IT, a ton of Bs in Maths, Spanish, English language, Biology, Physics and some Cs in Geography and Chemistry. Oh, I also got an A in my English literature paper yay! I still have a whole year to improve before my GCSEs :')**

**So enough rambling... although I have done a pretty Doctor Who picture of the TARDIS in space with the caption "carpe noctem" (Latin for "seize the night") and I did it with pastel pencils and sprayed it with glitter hair spray XD This may go on my deviant art, I don't know...**

**Anyways, on with the story!**

* * *

They were going to lose. It was over.

They had fought off as many of the creatures as they possibly could, but what with Marilyn dead and Becker seriously injured, the last thing Amy and Rory could do was to take the injured man into the next ruin, which was more of a proper building than anything else.

They used what they could to barricade the two exits and just hoped the creatures wouldn't be took quick in getting through them. Amy and Rory needed to buy as much time as possible until the Doctor came back to get them out of there.

Before they stood and waited for something to happen, Rory embraced his wife and kissed her on the lips, if anything should happen to them. Then they stood ready, and whenever a creature tried to break through, they would either shoot it.

Until the bullets ran out.

Then they would have to use the butt of the gun, which required getting close to the creatures, which neither wanted to do...

* * *

**Earlier on...**

After the others had left Amy turned to Rory.

"Why is that it's always us two that get left in the safe place?" she rolled her eyes.

"Because we were told to stay here by a mean woman."

"That's our captain you're talking about," said the other woman. "Although I have to agree with you. I'm Marilyn. That's Becker over there," she gestured to the other man who had remained there. He waved at them.

"Okay then... so, they're looking for a signal. How will we know if they've found the source?" Amy asked Marilyn.

"We'll be able to hear them, because of their coms."

"Can we speak with them?"

"We can, but on previous expeditions we haven't. It just works better that we listen and if anything goes wrong, then we can send for help. It's much better than getting everyone involved if there's some kind of _huge_ panic going on."

"Right..." said Rory.

"Hold on... we can hear them now," said Becker, turning up the volume on the computer. The four of them listened carefully to what was idle chatter, laughter and mainly Jack's voice.

"I don't know about you... but are you getting the impression they're not there yet?" said Rory. They chuckled and then waited, until all the laughter had stopped and they had reached their destination.

"Hang on, we should be able to track them... well, Natasha, Jensen and Clarice, at least," Marilyn said, typing at the keyboard, and soon a map came up, with three red people on it that had names above their heads.

They were able to see the three red figures moving on the map for a little while until they stopped, and they could hear speaking. To be more accurate, it seemed like arguing.

_"It's coming from here,"_ They heard Jensen say. _"We should go down there."_

_"That's stupidly dangerous,"_ came the voice of the Doctor.

_"Doctor Smith,"_ Natasha seemed mildly annoyed. _"We have to find out what's down there otherwise there would be no point in this trip."_

Amy couldn't help but roll her eyes up at the attitude of the woman towards the Doctor.

_"Alright then."_

"Is he actually going to go down there?" asked Rory during the silence that followed.

"They have to keep following it," replied Becker, exasperated. "I do agree it's a little stupid, but it has to be done. Although if Natasha could see sense, she wouldn't have sent him down there alone," he looked at his computer screen where the conversation was being uploaded automatically.

A little bored, Amy turned away from the computers and walked out of the ruin, and looked up at the darkened sky before surveying all the old, worn buildings.

She then caught sight of something moving.

Or was it a trick of the eye?

There it was again! What was it?

Feeling unnerved, Amy went back inside and pulled Rory away from the other two so she could tell him.

"Okay, we're not the only people here..." she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"I saw something outside. _Moving_. I don't think it was a person."

"Are you sure? You could just be seeing things."

"Rory, they're following a signal that had to be emitted by _something_. Unless of the course the ground is _magical_ and likes to emit.. stuff," she said to him pointedly. Just as Rory was about to respond, chaos seemed to erupt.

There was screaming coming from the computer and just a lot of general loud noise.

"What's going on?" Rory asked as they went back over to Marilyn and Becker.

"I – I don't know..." Marilyn was typing away quite fast, looking quite frantic. "But we've lost Jensen!"

"_S-something just... oh god, something just got Jensen. There's something down here,"_ came Clarice's shaky voice.

Then they could hear the Doctor shouting at Natasha before there was more silence. Becker was sitting there shaking his head and Marilyn was sitting frozen, and gaping at the screen.

"Despite all you have said, we have _got_ to do something!" Amy cried. "Our friends are there with them, and we don't know what it is that just happened! And just to let you know, I saw something outside."

"Exactly what did you see, then?" Marilyn turned to face Amy.

"I don't know. But it was moving."

"You sure it wasn't just a trick of the light?"

"There's hardly any light out there," pointed out Rory.

"You get what I mean..." sighed Marilyn. "You're definitely sure?"

"Positive," Amy nodded.

"Becker," Marilyn gave the nod of her head towards the area where the door would have been so Becker grabbed a gun and a torchlight before heading outside.

"There's not really anything out here... hold on..." they heard him call

The next thing they heard was repeated gun fire and a screeching sound before Becker came running back inside.

"She was right. There's something out there."

"Why only come out now? Unless they can only come out at night..." suggested Rory.

"I think you may be onto something," said Marilyn, once again typing away at the computer. "Becker, did you manage to get a good look at it?"

"Yes, just about," the man replied.

"Describe it for us, and we'll see if there's any match for what it could be."

"It's small in height and walks on four legs – which had some nasty looking claws on the end – and a long tail. I think... I think it was blind. It had no eyes."

"Anything else?"

"That's all I can give you, I'm afraid," Becker shrugged.

"Well, we've got a match," Marilyn moved away from the computer so the others could see. "They're simply called 'Predators.' They're the reason this place is just so empty. As soon as whoever inhabited this place began to spread wider and dig down, they came out and killed everyone. This place has been long dead, but it turns out we've been following a psychic, partly ultrasonic signal and they're the cause of it."

"Okay, so how comes you didn't know this before setting out?" asked Rory. "I mean, you didn't exactly research the signal, did you?"

"We knew there was some _kind_ of signal, but we weren't given too many details," said Becker, a little uncomfortable.

"We were just told to find the source... and don't go near the Predators. Their teeth contain a venom that causes the victim to go insane if bitten, and if they manage to get away. Judging by what's happened in the past, there's a low chance of survival. We're going to have to be very careful," added Marilyn.

"So if they're blind, that means their other senses are heightened, yes?" offered Amy.

"That would be correct."

"Then... wouldn't lots of them have heard Becker killing one and the cry it gave out?"

"Ahhh... that would be a slight problem," she checked back at the computer screen. "Um, they can also sense fear."

"How is it we can know all this stuff if they killed everyone?"

"Maybe someone survived long enough to actually get the information out there," Rory said.

"Fair enough... so what do we do now?"

"We warn the others, maybe?"

"Well, we should assume they already know about the Predators considering Jensen had an encounter with-" Marilyn began, but then stopped, because something else happened. "Oh god," she looked at the computer screen to find there was only one red person left. "We lost Clarice."

"Marilyn, I think he meant we warn them of what they are actually are and the full danger they possess," said Becker.

"Alright," she pushed down a button and then spoke. "Natasha? We've pretty much heard everything that's happened so far... and we found out something."

"_Oh excellent, that's what I like to hear. People who are actually doing something _constructive!" came the Doctor's voice.

"_Just shut up, would you? She was addressing _me, _I think you'll find. Carry on, Marilyn," _said Natasha.

"Well, the creatures are called Predators and they have a venom in their teeth which can cause insanity if you got bitten, and somehow managed to get away from it. Their other senses compensate for their blindness so _be careful_ of how afraid you actually are. They'll find you in a heartbeat."

"_Alright, anything else?"_

"We've lost Clarice, she's not showing up on the map."

"_Oh great, another person dead!"_ outburst Melanie. _"Jensen, Jack and now Clarice..."_

"Jack's dead?" Rory cried, with wide eyes.

"_...It's complicated,"_ replied Melanie.

"_Very complicated,"_ added the Doctor.

"You may have to explain this to me later," Rory muttered.

"_Anyway, as our lovely friend Marilyn was saying, we're going to have to be careful from now on and try not to get split up,"_ said the Doctor. _"Otherwise we'll all be in a bit of bother."_

The others chuckled a little at his phrasing, when there came a-

"_Shhh!" _it was Melanie. _"I think I heard something."_

"_Then we should get moving,"_ said Natasha.

All they could hear was running footsteps, and then a hissing sound, which seemed a little bit closer to home. Amy turned towards the doorway to find that one of the Predators was there, and it looked as if it were ready to pounce.

"Becker!" she cried, and he moved just in time to fire at the creature, causing it to blast back out of the doorway.

"I suggest you keep hold of a weapon," he said to the three of them, and pointed over at an open box in the corner. He kept an eye on the doorway and fired at anything that wanted to get to them whilst the others picked up a gun they felt comfortable with.

"Personally, I would be prefer a sword, but in these circumstances a gun is perfectly acceptable," commented Rory.

Marilyn and Becker looked at each other, confused.

"I was a Roman."

Still confusion.

"Urrr... Romans used to be on the Earth."

Nothing.

"The eruption of Pompeii."

"Ahh right, I see. I didn't know that that was the Romans" said Marilyn.

"It wasn't the Romans... they just died in the volcano eruption."

"All of them?"

"No!" Rory pinched the bridge of his nose. "Maybe this is a topic of conversation for when we're not in any major danger."

"Fair enough. That's if we get out of here _alive_," Becker pointed out.

"It's the Doctor though," said Amy. "We know him, and he _will _get us out of here."

"What makes him so special?"

"He's got a box, and it's the best thing in the universe... bigger on the inside, and if he can get back, he can take us all away from here."

"Fine by me," Marilyn shot at something. "I'd quite like to get out of here."


	4. Listen to Me

**Disclaimer: Not long till Who is back :D**

**Ahh, it has been a while, but I've been busy trying to write a script for a horror movie some friends and I are making this summer, and unfortunately I had to replace one of the cast ¬_¬ Ahh well, the script is slowly getting there, and this was taking forever to write, so today when I bought the Doctor Who Magazine, I was inspired, so I managed to get this done :)**

* * *

"How do we know what we're looking for?" asked Natasha as they walked through the endless tunnels, looking for Jack.

"I'm sorry, what?" replied Melanie.

"I mean... you said he's complicated, in reference to him being dead. So, exactly what does that mean? And do we have to look for anything?"

"To put it very bluntly," started the Doctor. "Jack can't die. It's a long story, but he can't die. If someone kills him, he'll just come back to life later on. I only say it's complicated because of the story behind it. The strange phenomenon..."

"Now that's getting philosophical," mumbled Melanie.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Anyway, if we hear someone calling out to us, we'll know it's him."

"Or if we happen to come across... well, something that's very-not-good."

They continued walking in silence for a little longer, occasionally turning the torches off if they heard anything that vaguely resembled hissing. Time went by slowly, and they all began to wonder whether Jack had somehow managed to get out, when Melanie tripped over something in one of their short moments in pitch black.

"What the hell did I just land in?" Melanie asked, as she landed in something quite sticky. Natasha turned on a torch and then beamed it on Melanie, who screamed as she realised it was blood. She jumped up quickly and then they realised she had tripped over the body of one Captain Jack Harkness.

"O...kay... he's still dead then," Melanie squeaked out. Natasha flashed the torch on her.

"To be completely honest with you, you look like a murder scene."

"I have to agree with her here..." the Doctor mumbled, before crouching down and surveying Jack a little closely, if not with disgust written all over his face. "I think he's just unconscious."

"But pretty badly messed up."

A groan told them that Jack was beginning to wake up.

"Did Melanie trip over me by any chance?" he then asked, after he managed to stand up.

"Screw you," she replied.

"I thought as much."

"Have I _missed_ something here?" the Doctor was quite confused.

"This sort of thing has happened before..." Melanie said.

"What? He's nearly died and you've tripped over him?"

"Something like that, yeah... I might tell you the full story one day."

"Okay then."

"So um... what are we gonna do now?" Jack asked. The Doctor looked around.

"Errr... find our way back somehow. We have to get out of here."

"I can't believe this... this trip took so long to plan, and it's all gone to waste," Natasha said, a little angrily. "I'm going to be in so much trouble."

"People have died," the Doctor began to say in a dangerously low voice. "And all you can think about is the consequences of not doing your job?"

Natasha took a step closer towards the Doctor.

"_Don't_ tell me what to think. Don't you dare. I'm not going to listen to a _liar._"

"I lied because I thought this was an innocent operation. Explanations would have been at around this point, but then you pretty much settled your friends' death sentences."

"They were _hardly_ my friends."

"Can't imagine why," Melanie whispered to Jack.

"What was that?" Natasha turned her attention to Melanie.

"Nothing... look, I agree with the Doctor. Even though I know him the same amount as you do, but he has got the one thing that can get us out of here safely."

"I have a ship too."

"A ship that is about to be overrun by those creatures."

Silence fell amongst them.

"And how would _you_ know?" she glared at Melanie.

"Okay, I guess that wasn't the best thing to say given the current situation we're in, and the fact I probably look like a murder scene."

Before Natasha could respond, a voice came from the comm she was carrying.

"_You have to get back..." _came the voice of Marilyn. She sounded very worn out and quiet. _"We found out there's a huge sandstorm going to hit us in the next half hour and there's so many of those creatures in it."_

There also seemed to be a lot of screeching going on in the background. The Doctor snatched the comm from Natasha and then spoke into it.

"What's going on over there?"

"_We're under attack... one of them got me."_

"How are the others? Are they alright?"

"_Your friends are fairing better than Becker and I. But you've got to get back here. And fast."_

"We'd better get going then..." the Doctor said to the others, handing the comm back to Natasha, who took it back whilst scowling at him.

"We've only got one torch between the four of us," she pointed out smugly. "And you're going to follow me."

Jack let out some derivative laughter.

"Back at this, are we? You've got some sort of power complex, I gotta tell you."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, we're not gonna be following you anywhere else," Jack then looked at the Doctor and Melanie. "I have a torch. Let's go."

"You can stay down here if you like..." the Doctor told the stubborn woman. "But we'd quite like to leave now, and so can you, if you just listened to what we're saying and come with us."

"I still have results to find."

"No, you really don't," Melanie replied, going up to her and taking the torch. She then turned back to the two men. "Let's just go."

"So you're just going to _leave_ me here?"

"You _want_ to be left here."

"This isn't the best time..." the Doctor began, as he shifted uncomfortably.

"You're right, it isn't... shall we go?" Melanie began walking away, the Doctor and Jack both stunned. The men took one last look at Natasha before turning away from her.

"I'll regret this later," the Doctor said to Jack quietly.

"There was no way you could have got her to come anyway."

"Hmmph... you know Jack, for once it would be quite nice if people listened to me. Or if people didn't have to _die_ so often."

"Do you think she'll die?"

"More than likely. She's going to be down here, all alone, and without light."

"That's true I suppose..."

"Oh and a quick question for you: is Melanie usually like... _that_?"

"Like _what?_"

"A little... ruthless with things like this?"

"Does it scare you?" Jack smirked at him. The Doctor frowned at him.

"You've evidently not met River Song. But no, it doesn't scare me – she just came across as..."

"Not that ruthless?"

"Yeah..."

"I thought that too, so you're good."

"Hey, you know I can still hear you," Melanie called back to them. "I'm not ruthless! Just a bit harsh..."

"Do you think you'll feel bad about it later?" Jack was honestly quite curious about this. They had been in a few similar situations like this before, and sometimes she felt guilt and other times she didn't.

"I'm not entirely sure."

"That means she is," Jack told the Doctor quietly.

"I'm not surprised," he replied.

"You two, shh!" Melanie said, turning off the torch.

"What?" Jack said.

"No, no, she's right, be quiet... and turn off the torch."

Jack did as the Doctor said, and the three of them listened. There was a hissing sound once more, only it seemed to have elevated in the noise level. It couldn't have been just one Predator, there was no chance it could make a noise that loud. The Doctor and Jack crept forward until they were right next to Melanie, who jumped a little, as she wasn't expecting them to be right behind her.

They stood in silence, listening to the sounds, unable to tell whether they were getting closer or further away. It seemed to be the former, and as well as the hissing, they could hear a snuffling sound too.

"They can smell the blood..." the Doctor whispered, referring to the fact Melanie had Jack's dried blood on her. The Doctor then fumbled about a bit, trying to take the torch from Jack. He then looked up. "I'm not sure, but I think I can feel cooler air. Now I'm going to flash the torch on for a second, and if the hole we came down in is above us, you are going to jump up. Melanie first, then Jack. If not, we run."

Even though they knew he couldn't see them, Jack and Melanie nodded.

The Doctor counted to three in his head and then flashed the torch for a split second, revealing that they were in fact back where they had started. It also revealed that they were pretty much surrounded by Predators.

Melanie jumped, however was unable to reach the top of the hole to grab onto, so Jack tried and managed to get out, holding his arms out so he could help up Melanie and the Doctor. As soon as they were out, the Doctor picked up the UV light and they started to run as fast as they could, the Predators obviously following them.

Getting back to the vehicle they used to the get there, Jack jumped into it.

"Give me the UV light!" he held out his hand for it.

"Why? What are you planning on?" the Doctor asked, handing the UV light to Jack before getting into the vehicle after Melanie.

"The both of you are going to have to run back."

"We could just go in this," pointed out Melanie.

"I have an idea."

"Are you going to blow up the car? Again? I mean, I know it's not a car, but still..."

"Well, I'm going to try."

"Jack, you are probably the most stupid-" Melanie screamed as she was forcefully thrown onto the ground by a Predator. She managed to push it's head away from her body, and trying to get it off of her completely only caused it to dig its claws into her further, in an effort to keep hold of her.

The sound of the sonic echoed through her ears and the Predator lay on her, unconscious. Melanie shoved it off of herself and the Doctor yanked her up and the pair of them started running, leaving Jack behind to keep the attacking Predators busy so they could run and get the others.

"We'll come back for you Jack!" Melanie yelled back to him. "We will come back for him won't we?" she said to the Doctor.

"Once we get back to the TARDIS, yes."

It was starting to get a little lighter, and despite it still being very, very dark, they were able to see marginally better than they could before. Trying to outrun nocturnal creatures and a sandstorm was probably one of the most insane things the Doctor had ever done, but it was the only option left after the Predators had started to attack.

They had been running at top speed for about ten minutes before the Doctor realised that Melanie was starting to slow down. Her footsteps seemed to be lagging behind his with every passing second. He managed to grab her hand and pretty much started pulling her along. The noise of the sandstorm was getting ever closer, and if it had taken them between three or four hours to get to the cliffs in something that resembled a safari truck, how long would it take for them to run back?

The Doctor could _feel_ the sandstorm behind them now. It was so strong it seemed as if they were being drawn back into it, so he wrapped his arm around Melanie's waist and then launched them to the ground. It was just in time, as two or three Predators had decided to jump, and then the sandstorm finally hit them.

They weren't on the ground for long.

The force of the storm was so powerful, that the Doctor was ripped from Melanie and was being thrown about on the ground, into various Predators that were somehow _still_ able to run, and he was definitely sure that at one point, he was close to Melanie again, as he felt her long, plaited hair whipped in his face.

It didn't seem to last very long, considering the fact the Doctor hit his head hard enough to be knocked out.

* * *

"Hey... hey!" came a Scottish voice. The Doctor managed to get his eyes open and find that it was daylight, and he was back at the ruins. He sat up and looked at his friend, confusion crossing his face.

"How did I...?"

"The sandstorm. It carried a _lot_. With the same result we were all knocked out," Amy helped up the Doctor. He looked around and saw that the 'safari truck' had smashed into one of the ruins, bits of spacecraft were embedded in a fresh layer of sand and the TARDIS-

The TARDIS!

The Doctor ran over to his beloved TARDIS, to see that there wasn't a scratch on it, however it was currently resting against a ruin at an angle. Jack was lying right next to it and Melanie was lying splayed on the ground, not far from where the Doctor had been.

"Where's Rory? And the other two?"

"We were inside the ruins, and everything was blocked up the best it could be... so he's still inside, so's Becker, but he's in a pretty bad state. Marilyn, she... she's dead."

The Doctor sighed.

Before Amy could say anything else, Rory came out of one of the ruins, rubbing the back of his head.

"Um... I think I should let you know... that... well, Becker didn't exactly... _live_ through that sandstorm," he explained to them.

"Oh god," Amy went over to him, and they embraced.

"So, no survivors?" came Jack's voice. He sauntered over to them, dusting sand off of himself.

"No... why can't there just be a day where everybody lives?" the Doctor replied, a little annoyed. "Why can't people _listen_?"

"You had that day once, Doc, but it doesn't mean you won't get it again. Today wasn't that day."

"Today was a bad day..." the Doctor grumbled as he went back over to the TARDIS. "What's the bad sandstorm done to you?" he patted the blue box lovingly.

"Nothing too bad, I hope," Melanie said, as she stumbled over to him. "It feels like I'm having a really bad hangover..."

"And if you think about it, there have probably been more sandstorms like this in the past, and it caused this place to become ruins as time went by."

"What about the people who lived her before though?" Amy asked. "Wouldn't they have got caught up in the sandstorms too?"

"They probably had something to protect themselves – the human race, you're too clever to not get caught in a sandstorm."

"Unless your name is Bear Grylls," pointed out Rory. The Doctor chuckled.

"I suppose so! Oh, one word of warning: don't let him near your socks when in a jungle."

"Oh... yuck."

"If you two ladies have stopped gossiping," said Jack. "Are we going to go? We didn't get thrown back here for nothing, y'know."

"Right! Yes!" the Doctor opened the TARDIS doors, and was about to step inside when he remembered something. "The bodies."

"I'll deal with them."

Jack wandered away from the TARDIS whilst the others went inside – carefully, since it was at an angle and they nearly ended up sliding to the console. They waited for about ten minutes for Jack to come back, and when he did, he looked a little solemn.

"I buried them," he said simply.

"Well then. We should go," the Doctor replied. He pulled various levers, pushed some buttons and even hit something lightly with a hammer, causing the TARDIS to come to life and they all had to hold onto something.

When all the movement stopped, there were a few moments of silence before Jack spoke.

"This was fun, to some extent, Doctor," he went to go and shake the man's hand. "Nice seeing you again."

"Yes! You too, Jack Harkness," the Doctor smiled at his friend.

"Isn't there a Captain in there somewhere?" Melanie smirked as she went up to the Doctor. "It was lovely meeting you."

"Yeah, it was nice meeting you as well," the Doctor's smile became smaller and he looked more curious than anything. Melanie shook it off and went to say goodbye to Amy and Rory, as Jack had also done.

"Where are we?" Jack asked as he approached the door.

"Same place, a few minutes after we left."

"Brilliant. Come on Mel, I need to introduce you to a new drinking game..." Jack walked out of the TARDIS, Melanie following him and saying under her breath:

"I hate it when you call me 'Mel.'"

Then the pair of them were gone. The Doctor silently stood staring at the door, the curious look still on his face. Amy and Rory had picked up on how quiet he was currently being, and the fact he wasn't really doing anything either.

"Doctor..." began Amy. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine... just... I have questions I need to ask."

"To ask Melanie?"

"Well, who else?"

"I don't know, you could be wanting to ask the hot American some questions..."

"Um, husband right here?" said Rory, pointing at himself. Amy went up to him and kissed him on the lips.

"Better?"

"Yes."

"Doctor, go and get Melanie before Jack gets her drunk out of her mind."

The Doctor smiled and ran out of the TARDIS, running to the bar to find Jack had already got Melanie drinking.

"Melanie!" he hurried over to their table. "I have questions, lots and lots of questions."

"Okay..." she frowned slightly. "Then ask your questions."

The Doctor gave her a very pointed look.

"Oh... oh! I see..." she stood up and then hugged Jack. "You don't mind me going, do you?"

"I think you _need_ it. Go. I'll be around somewhere if you suddenly get bored."

Melanie laughed.

"Fine by me! Goodbye, Captain Jack Harkness. It has been a pleasure. Don't stop being... umm, kinky, I guess the word is."

It was Jack's turn to laugh, then he promptly waved them off as he spotted someone he quite liked the look of sitting at the bar itself.

Once back at the TARDIS, Melanie looked sheepishly at Amy and Rory.

"I'll be joining you for a while..."

"That's good," said Amy. "We need another babysitter for _him_ anyway," she gestured at the Doctor.

"Hey!" he said indignantly.

"You're like a drunk baby giraffe and Rory and I are almost like your babysitters sometimes."

"I er, have to agree with Amy on this one," said Rory.

Melanie cocked her head to the side, looking at the Doctor.

"Oh! I see it now."

"Oh ha ha, very funny Ponds, turning the new girl against me... Off to bed with you!"

Amy rolled her eyes.

"'Night Doctor," she called back to him as she followed her husband up the stairs.

Melanie then noticed how the Doctor was still giving her that look of curiosity and she sighed.

"You've been giving me that look a fair amount in the past hour. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong!" the Doctor started to move around the TARDIS console. "I was just wondering how you knew the Predators were on their spacecraft."

"Well you said it yourself the signal was psychic, and I'm still having a bit of trouble of keeping up the barriers in my head. If you see what I mean."

"So you picked up on the fact they were there?"

"Yes. It was so weird though... it was like they were sort of screaming inside my head. And for some reason, I was able to understand them. Hence why I knew they had gotten on their spacecraft."

"Hmm, interesting that you could understand them. Most likely the TARDIS translating for you."

"Let's go with that then... do you have any more questions?" she chuckled.

"Not tonight. You should probably head to bed."

"God knows I need it... um, where do I go?"

"Up the stairs, down the corridor, third right, second left and up the ladder," the Doctor told her, grinning like an idiot.

"A ladder? I'm sorry, but a _ladder_?" Melanie said as she went up the stairs.

"Well, the old girl likes to make things interesting," he patted the console and the TARDIS hummed in contentment. Melanie smiled.

"Fair enough... goodnight, Doctor.

"Goodnight, Melanie."

* * *

**So Melanie has joined the TARDIS crew, and the next chapter shows the Doctor in all his curiosity... amongst a few other things I haven't quite thought about yet .**

**-OptimisticLivvy**


	5. Personal

**Disclaimer: It's back this week yay!**

**It seems I'm updating monthly now... oopsy, that wasn't supposed to happen!**

**Anyway, here's an interesting chapter for you - it started out fairly standard but then it got snappy and I'm not sure how... enjoy!**

* * *

The next day, after a good night's sleep, Melanie managed to lose her way in the TARDIS, in search of a kitchen for that very much need cup of coffee. She was surprised she had even got any sleep at all, considering the fact her 'bed' was a hammock. She would talk to the Doctor about that later, because right now: coffee.

Melanie was considering asking the TARDIS for some help, when she rounded a corner and saw that the first door she passed down this new corridor, was in fact the kitchen. Inside were Amy and Rory, happily leaning against the counters and drinking either tea or coffee.

"Please tell me that is coffee," said Melanie, walking up to them.

"Morning to you too," Rory raised his mug to Melanie as she approached them. "But yes, it's coffee."

"Sorry, the first thing I think of in the morning is coffee," she replied, taking the filled cup Amy handed her. Melanie took a sip, feeling better having done so. "Oh yeah, I'm not the only one bruised on their back and legs?"

"Nope," said Amy. "I'm pretty bashed up too, so's Rory."

"I was worried about bones being fractured or broken, but I think we were pretty lucky," Rory said. "Anyway... onto a lighter note, how did you sleep?"

Melanie scowled.

"My bed is a _hammock_."

"We have _bunk beds_," Amy told her.

"Hammock with only a blanket - I was too tired to find a duvet."

"Fine, you win, but married couples do_ not_ belong in bunk beds."

"True... But when you think about it, if you break one bed, at least there's another one."

Amy went slightly pink in the cheeks, but had a look of approval on her face as she drank more of her coffee, whilst Rory wandered around the kitchen, muttering about cereal. Melanie chuckled.

"Well I'm going to take my coffee and this banana and find my way back my room," Melanie picked up a banana from the fruit bowl next her and left the kitchen. A banana didn't seem like much, but after six months with Jack, lots of late nights and moving from place to place quite frequently, Melanie had forgotten what it was like to be _properly_ hungry.

She had been walking in the silence of the TARDIS for some time now, once again lost in trying to find her room... this place was impossibly large.

"You don't like the hammock?"

Melanie jumped as she heard the Doctor's voice behind her. She turned and looked at him sheepishly.

"It's not that I don't like it... I just prefer beds by a long shot – much more comfortable."

"I see," he them grinned at her mischievously. "Are you lost?"

"A bit."

"You could just ask."

"Ask?"

"Yes. Ask the TARDIS. Treat her like a person – I talk to her a lot."

"I forgot that the TARDIS is a 'she.' Also, doesn't it feel like you're talking to yourself though? Even though yes, she is a... she, but the point still stands."

"It doesn't, and it shouldn't for you either if you ever get lost in here. Oh! Here we are," the Doctor pointed at the ladder. Melanie looked at the coffee and banana in her hands.

"How am I meant to get up that?"

"Umm... here, let me hold your... stuff, and I'll pass it up to you," the Doctor held onto the mug and banana as Melanie climbed up the short ladder, opening the hatch in the ceiling and taking her breakfast back, placing them on the floor inside.

"Thanks Doctor," she said, before disappearing from view.

Upon arrival back in her room, Melanie found that the hammock was gone and a rather large bed was in its place. She smiled and went to sit on it, enjoying the comfort and eating her breakfast whilst she did so. The TARDIS was a strange place, but it was quite... wonderful.

* * *

Later on, after Melanie had properly gotten dressed, she decided to go and explore a little, and at least try not to get lost. At least she had the comfort of knowing that the TARDIS would help her, if she needed it. The TARDIS was bigger on the inside, but Melanie didn't think it was _that_ big.

Almost getting lost twice, Melanie came across the Doctor, Amy and Rory inside a large room with DVDs covering an entire wall, along with two couches in the middle and pretty big TV screen at the opposite end of the room. They seemed to be debating what to watch.

"But _The Big Bang Theory_ is actually-" Rory was trying to say before the Doctor cut him off.

"Wrong! Some of their facts are _wrong_."

"You like _Star Trek_..."

"Star Trek was real, I've met Captain Kirk."

"Was he nice?"

"A bit arrogant, but a lovely chap-"

"How about you lot avoid Sci-Fi things altogether?" Melanie said, approaching them.

"That is what I've been trying to tell them for the past fifteen minutes!" Amy huffed, as the two men stopped 'debating.'

"Yeah, they're only stopping to acknowledge the fact I just entered the room."

Amy looked at the two men, now arguing again.

"Oh yeah, good point," she chuckled a bit. "Come on, let's have a look at something we could all agree to watch."

They went to the wall of DVDs, and somehow they were in the section full of romantic comedies and chick-flicks. Melanie instantly moved away and Amy was surprised.

"You _don't _like these sort of films?"

"God no. If you think about it really hard, they're all the same. Although secretly, I do like to watch _The Notebook_. Don't tell anyone that, alright?"

"Fine..." Amy gave her a cheeky grin and then came over to the area that Melanie was in and spotted something that caught her interest. "_Sherlock? _I've heard of that, I just never watched it... and there's a series two! I swear the first series has _just_ finished airing."

"Well this is a time machine..."

The Doctor and Rory had stopped arguing and came over to the women, and the Doctor's face lit up when he saw they had found _Sherlock_.

"That'll make you cry."

"In what way, could _Sherlock_ make us cry?" Rory asked, slightly confused.

"I'm not telling you that," replied the Doctor, smiling.

"Are we going to watch it then?" Amy pulled the DVD from the shelf and went to go and put it in the player.

"Have fun!" the Doctor made his way towards the door.

"Wait, you're not watching it with us?" Melanie raised an eyebrow at him.

"Nope."

"Then why did you and I just argue for fifteen minutes?" Rory said.

"We weren't _arguing_ we were having a debate..." the Doctor was slowly shuffling backwards towards the door now.

"No, you two were arguing!" Amy called over. The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"Either way, I don't want to watch it."

"Why? Is it because you don't want to cry?" Melanie sniggered.

"It's not that, I have to fix the TARDIS," the Doctor then hurried out of the room and as Rory was about to say something, he poked his head back in. "Oh yes, there is an episode which never got aired and is on that, so watch that first, then the rest so that means I'll be seeing you lot in ten hours!"

He was then promptly gone after that.

Rory, Amy and Melanie then looked at each other in confusion, before sitting down on the sofa, Rory sitting in between the two women, and they began watching.

* * *

Ten hours later, the Doctor came back after tinkering with the TARDIS, which caused small explosions in the process as he was once again fixing things that did not need to be fixed. All the same, he needed something to do whilst the others sat and watched a TV screen for ten hours. It was pretty much impossible for him to even do that...

The sight he met was interesting, to say the least.

Amy was curled up at one of the sofa, quite openly crying.

Rory was sitting on the floor, his knees brought up to his chest and his forehead resting on them.

Melanie was staring at the TV, eyes wide and tears streaming down her face.

"That was... that was just so... sad," Rory looked up and said. He had obviously been crying too...

"I think that destroyed my emotions," replied Amy.

"That last scene was just _hearbreaking_," Melanie turned to them and said. She then noticed the Doctor at the door and scowled at him. _"You."_

"Me?" he replied innocently.

"You let us watch this?!" Amy cried out.

"It's brilliant..."

"But the ending," Melanie went and retrieved and the DVD from the player and put it back in its box before returning it to the shelf.

"Yes, it's not a nice ending, but Sherlock is still alive!"

"He left John all by himself," added in Rory.

"And now John has to wait for three years," said Melanie.

"You've read the books?" asked the Doctor.

"Umm... who hasn't?"

"Okay good point, but _all_ of the books?"

"No. I haven't had the time," Melanie looked at Amy and Rory. "Have you had time to read all of the books?"

"Nope... read half of them," replied Amy.

"I've read most," said Rory.

"So how comes you haven't had the time?" the Doctor asked Melanie. She simply shrugged.

"I've been a bit busy, I guess."

"Doing what?"

"I'm guessing these are the questions you want to ask me in the lead up to meeting Jack?" Melanie replied back, a little snappy. "Well, I was travelling around Europe."

"Europe? Any particular reason?"

"You know, curiosity is brilliant and everything, but this is going to the scale of _annoying_."

"Melanie, he's not trying to be annoying," Rory told her gently.

"No, he may not be but that doesn't mean I'm not getting mildly irritated!" she sighed. "Look, I'm just going to go back to my room, and be alone," she made her way to the door, where the Doctor was standing, looking at her. "Please move," she folded her arms.

"Alright," he stood aside and let her go past. The Doctor waited for about thirty seconds before following her.

"What is so wrong with me asking you questions, hmm? I did tell you I wanted to ask you a couple of things."

"I did acknowledge that, and I made it clear I knew that back there. You want to know how I ended up with Jack, fair enough; it was a cold, snowy night in the midst of Berlin and I decided to take refuge in the nearest building-" Melanie began mockingly, however the Doctor cut her off.

"I don't need the fancy details," he said quite cheerily.

"Fine then, it was just a bar in Germany about six months back."

"Okay... that's all I wanted to know. For now."

"Is it though, Doctor?"

"Well-"

"I thought as much."

"I'm curious, if you've been gallivanting with Jack for six months, wouldn't your family be worried?"

"And now it's getting personal. I was wondering when that would happen," she told him bitterly. "Aren't _your_ family worried about you?" she stopped and faced the Doctor, a slightly dark look in her eyes, whilst he just looked extremely hurt.

"You say you have little control over keeping out people's thoughts, but did you just do that on _purpose_?"

"It was accidental but then I decided I'd quite like to shove it back in your face," she turned on her heel and began to walk away from the Doctor. "Oh and just so you know, I don't actually feel any guilt for leaving behind Natasha... I've felt enough guilt in my life."

Melanie turned the corner and was gone, leaving the Doctor slightly stunned, but more upset and angry than anything.

* * *

**I don't know how it got all argue-y and stuff... but it works, I think. This rewrite is having a completely different approach to how the Doctor and Melanie start out :)**

**Leave a review my lovelies!**

**Livvy ^_^**


	6. Paradise Planet

**Disclaimer: I don't fancy wanting to own Doctor Who this week, considering it's Amy and Rory's last episode :(**

**Okay, I have got to stop with these monthly updates, because quite frankly it's a stupid pace for me to be honest :/**

**Anyway, here is a lovely wonderful chapter, a third of which was written in normal writing circumstances of me at my laptop with a cup of tea, a third written at night on my phone whilst I was supposed to be asleep (shhh, don't tell my parents) and a third was written on the main computer whilst listening to Two Door Cinema Club - woo!**

**But um, I shocked myself to say the least... it starts of kinda sad, I guess, with a hint of angst, then a bit of awkward tension, then friendship-ness and then fluff XD Enjoy!**

* * *

Things were tense for a few days in the TARDIS, and it didn't go unnoticed by Amy and Rory. They had been wondering what happened when the Doctor had followed Melanie out of the cinema room, and it was obvious it hadn't ended well, because the Doctor was speaking to any of them and if he got with Melanie's eyesight she would turn and walk away.

Amy was walking through the library with Melanie (they were looking for the swimming pool) when she tried to ask what exactly went on.

"Melanie... you know the other day? When we watched _Sherlock_?" she started off.

"Yes I do."

"And then the Doctor came in after... and you said he was being annoying?"

Melanie just smiled at Amy.

"If you're wondering why I've been the way I've been for the past couple of days, you _can_ just ask – I'm not going to bite your head off."

"You sort of bit the Doctor's head off."

"Yeah well, he was just _asking_ for it."

"Look, whatever he said to you I'm sure he didn't mean it."

"You know, I sort of wish that was true," Melanie's eyes narrowed a little. Amy raised her eyebrows.

"What did he say? If it was bad maybe I can smack him upside the head," she laughed and so did Melanie.

"It just got a bit personal, very quickly. He _knew_ I was irritated but he still kept pressing matters I don't exactly want to talk about quite yet. I know he's curious and all, but I only met him last week. I can trust you not to pester me, yes?"

"Of course."

"Okay, well, the Doctor was trying to find the reason of why I was in Europe and how I ended up 'gallivanting with Jack' which lead to him asking about whether my family were worried about me..."

"You're saying that something has happened with your family and you don't like talking about it? And it's the reason why you were in Europe?"

"Oh my god, if it's that obvious to you, it should be obvious to him."

"The Doctor doesn't get obvious. Well he does, but not _all_ the time," they turned right and went down another isle in the library. "Why is _he_ angry though?"

"I may have thrown the same question back in his face."

"That was low."

"That was the whole point. Yes, it came from accidentally reading his mind and there was some sense of guilt there, so then it became on purpose and then I just threw it back at him. Which is why he's not talking to anybody."

"He's cooling off..."

"Exactly."

They walked on in silence for a little bit and then they found the swimming pool. The two women sat down at the edge, took off their shoes and then dangled their legs in the water.

"You know, the Doctor's always like that, asking questions and _yes_, it does get a little bit personal at times but you've got to look past that. It's just _him_. He can take interest in the biggest of things right down to the tiniest and that's where he asks questions. Just not as many as you. You're somewhere in the middle."

"I'm somewhere in the middle? Not big or small?" Melanie looked a little confused.

"Yup," Amy popped the 'p.'

"How does that even work?"

"I..." Amy paused for a moment. "I have _no_ idea!"

They both laughed again and then Melanie nudged Amy in the elbow gently.

"I'm quite enjoying this. I haven't been in the company of another woman for about... four years?"

"Wow. I don't think I'd be able to cope with a girl friend."

"How do you think I coped being alone for four years? Well, alone here meaning without friends. Because I was surrounded by foreign strangers, occasionally waking up next to one," she shuddered at that thought.

"Not a good four years, I'm guessing..."

"Well, Europe was alright despite _that_. I met Jack out of it, didn't I?"

"Yes you did. And you were _lonely_ before that. The Doctor understands loneliness better than anyone else in the universe."

Melanie winced.

"So do you think I should apologise?"

"It's a start," Amy shrugged.

"What will he say?" in truth, Melanie was a little worried, considering that yes, she did take a low blow to the Doctor...

"I don't know... he could understand if you explained- or not," Amy changed the ending of her sentence considering the look Melanie gave her. "Wait... you didn't want to tell him what we talked about... but why did you even tell _me_?"

"You said I could trust you not to pester me, and like I said, I've not had female company for quite a while. You've also given me a good insight to what the Doctor's like as well."

Amy gave Melanie a warm smile, feeling touched that someone she hadn't known for too long had managed to tell her what had been... well, bugging them. For quite a while. It was strange, but then she remembered that a similar thing had happened with the Doctor on Starship UK.

"Glad I could help. You okay getting to the console room?"

"Should be, because the door is opposite us and leads straight out to it. Thank you, TARDIS..." Melanie added on the end.

"I think she just wants you to speak to the Doctor so he can be happy again."

"Yeah, yeah, I know..." Melanie rolled her eyes in a light-hearted way which showed she didn't mean it as she picked up her shoes and stood up, making her way to the half open door.

Before going into the console room, she just popped her head through the door, and saw that the Doctor had his back to her, tinkering away at the console, occasionally muttering to himself but most of the time he did it in silence. She stepped into the console room and made her way down the stairs, sitting on the jump seat a few metres away from him.

"I was wondering when you'd come," the Doctor said, a little bored.

"Amy gave me some good advice. Well, not exactly _advice_ but she gave me something," Melanie shifted uncomfortably as the Doctor turned to face her. His expression was slightly dark at first, but then became lighter when she mention Amy.

"Oh Pond... she's good, isn't she?" he said softly, the hint of a smile on his face, which was gone as quickly as it had come.

"Look, I-"

"Melanie you took a _very, very_ low blow yesterday," he cut her off in a dangerously low voice.

"Aren't you going to let me explain?"

"Are you going to get angry at me again?"

"No, because if I was going to, I wouldn't be here, would I?" she replied, her voice raised a little.

"Then by all means, _explain_."

"If you looked at it from my point of view, you wouldn't want to be giving away personal information to someone you barely know. Why did you have to keep at it? That's what I wanted to know. Because I wouldn't have made any jabs at you if _you_ hadn't tried to make me say things," Melanie paused for a moment, glaring at the Doctor. "Oh, I guess I did get a bit angry with you just there," she added on the end, mockingly.

"I kept at it because... you're sad. And for once I'd like to fix a sad person, instead of me being the sad person and having to end up being fixed," the Doctor replied, looking down at his shoes.

"I'm not just something you can fix. I'm not a broken clock," Melanie replied. "But you're right."

"Well-"

"Don't."

"Right."

"I am sorry, though," she said quietly.

"I know you are."

An awkward tension and silence was hanging in the air, as it seemed that they had come to some form of mutual understanding, despite Melanie apologising. Before things could get even more awkward than they already were, Amy and Rory came into the console room, thus saving the Doctor and Melanie to have to talk to each other for the time being.

"So, everything okay?" asked Amy.

"Of course it is!" the Doctor said cheerily. "Why wouldn't it be? Besides, I've got somewhere to take you lot, I think you'll enjoy it..." he began whizzing around the console, pushing all sorts of buttons and pulling levers, which everyone took as a cue to hold onto something.

The TARDIS wheezed and shook as it took off for flight, and a couple of minutes later, it stopped and everyone let go of whatever they were holding onto. The Doctor bounded over to the door with a large grin on his face, throwing the doors open dramatically. He stepped outside, and Amy, Rory and Melanie looked at each other quizzically before following him out of the TARDIS.

The sight that lay before them made their jaws drop. It was sunny, very sunny, and there was a beach in front of them with the whitest sand and the bluest water. The sky was verging on a purple-blue colour, despite it most likely being around noon. There were various sorts of plant life around as well. It was by no means quiet, it was filled with an array of characters, ranging from humans to some form of yellow blobs that seemed to be sunbathing.

"Wow..." Amy eventually said. "What is this place?"

"The Paradise Planet... nothing bad ever happens here!" the Doctor replied.

"Don't go around jinxing it..." Rory muttered.

"Why did you bring us?" Melanie asked the Doctor. He simply shrugged.

"It's nice here," he said. "Also, Amy's been _begging_ for a honeymoon."

"Um, so was I," Rory raised his hand. The Doctor smirked as Amy patted him on the shoulder in a slightly condescending manor. Melanie looked at the couple, amusement in her eyes.

"Well that's settled that then. You two can stay for however many weeks you want, and Melanie and I can stay here for the day, then leave you to do what married couples... do."

The Doctor then started walking forward towards the beach, and the others followed him.

"So where exactly are we going to stay, if we're going to stay here for let's say... three weeks?" Amy wondered.

"Four weeks," Rory said. "We'll stay for four weeks."

"Four weeks sounds fair enough considering the last honeymoon went a bit wrong..."

"What was wrong with that hotel in London?" the Doctor replied, sounding slightly offended.

"There were _Drahvins_ in the basement and they wanted to take over the Earth!" Amy replied, her voice slightly raised.

"Well you can't have _everything_…" the Doctor muttered, pulling a face as he did so. Stopping next to an empty hammock between two trees, he turned and faced the Ponds. He fished something out of the inner pocket of his jacket and handed it to Rory.

"What's this?" Rory looked at the golden piece of small plastic a little confused.

"It has money on it. Lots of money, I might add... especially if you're going to be here for the next for weeks," the Doctor smiled. "Also, as for accommodation, if you follow the direction of where the yellow blobs are coming from, you should find something there," he gave a quick wink at them. "We'll see you in four weeks."

Amy looked as if she could scream, but instead she just threw her arms around the Doctor, squealing "thank you" a numerous amount of times. After Rory muttered his thanks with an awkward smile, Amy took his hand and then pretty much skipped off, dragging the poor man in her wake. Melanie then looked at the Doctor, and jumped onto the hammock, reclining back in it once it had stopped swinging. The Doctor chuckled at her.

"What?" Melanie folded her arms.

"Nothing..." the Doctor muttered. "You just... no, never mind."

Melanie rolled her eyes at him.

"Seriously, tell me, or I'll get in a mood with you again."

"You're not in a mood with me any more?"

"No, but if you keep that up I will be again," Melanie huffed.

"Fine... Well, you're very... Relaxed..." said the Doctor, sitting down at the foot of the tree by Melanie's head. She frowned.

"Am I not allowed to be relaxed?"

"You are- it's because, well, I didn't exactly accept your apology, did I?"

"We came to an understanding of sorts. But neither of us will properly understand each other until we both come clean," she shot the Doctor a sideways look to find he was staring at the sandy ground. He then slowly met her gaze.

"So-"

"No."

"Okay then, later?"

"It really depends…"

"On what?"

"Doctor!"

"Right."

Silence fell between them as Melanie stared up at the canopy of the trees and the Doctor looked towards the ocean. Melanie then looked back at the Doctor again after a few minutes and sighed.

"We're not exactly getting along swimmingly, are we?" she then said.

"I'm sure we could rectify that," he replied, quietly.

"How?"

The Doctor smirked as he took off his jacket, shoes and socks. He then rolled up the bottom of his trousers and then grabbed Melanie, placing her over his shoulder in a fireman lift. Melanie twigged what he was doing and started kicking him.

"Doctor, _put me down!_" she yelled at him. This only made him laugh as he walked towards the water.

"Maybe we can get along more _swimmingly_ after this," he told her, as he waded out in the sea, and then stopping when the water was about up to his knees, and happily dumped Melanie into it.

After getting over the initial shock, Melanie stood up and glared at the Doctor, and then jumped on him, causing him to topple over into the water as well. The pair of them stood up, both of them absolutely soaking wet and Melanie looked at the Doctor with triumph.

"Don't try anything else, Bowtie, or it'll _be_ the bowtie next."

The Doctor's hand suddenly flew up to his bowtie.

"No. You don't touch the bowtie. Bowties are cool."

"Then don't chuck me in the water again, Bowtie."

"Don't call me that!" he removed his hand from the bowtie and sulked a little.

"But it suits you… literally, I guess."

The Doctor looked at Melanie and with a smile, held out his hand.

"Back to the TARDIS?" he said.

"Alright then."

Melanie looked at the Doctor's hand, then him and took it.

* * *

**I always think that when someone takes the Doctor's hand some serious stuff goes down, what do you think? :D**

**Livvy xxx**


	7. Rio

**Disclaimer: We have a dreaded wait until Christmas. GAH.**

**Oh dear, it's been over a month again, hasn't it? I'm trying, but year 11 is pretty demanding and it's not nice *le sigh* Anyway, I have a lovely new chapter for you lot! Well... sort of new - I did a one-shot a while ago called "Carpe Noctem" but then I decided it would fit better into the story itself and so I made a few modifications to it.**

**Hopefully I'll be able to get the next chapter in the next couple of weeks, as it's a flow-able continuation of the end of this chapter.**

**Thanks to the people who reviewed :3**

* * *

It had been a fair few hours after leaving Amy and Rory for a honeymoon, however the Doctor and Melanie had not spoken since then, despite having cleared the air a little. However whilst the Doctor sat in the entrance to the TARDIS, gazing up at the stars, there was still something troubling him.

Melanie. Her attempts to try and avoid him, trying to avoid answering anything he asked her regarding what she liked, or her family, or...

The Doctor frowned slightly, before realising that's what it was. She didn't like talking about her family... something had happened. Something bad, which is why she went to Europe. It just reminded him of why he didn't talk about his family, his home... it was an upsetting topic...

"Do you do this often?" said a female voice from behind the Doctor, making him jump.

"I like to, yes," he replied, turning to find Melanie walking towards where he was sitting and standing next to him. Melanie surveyed him carefully before speaking again.

"You're sad."

"Perhaps a little..." he patted the space next to him. "Sit down. Dangle your legs out."

Melanie did as he said, but knew the Doctor was trying to avoid the subject matter.

"Why are you so sad?"

"Can we not press that matter," the Doctor sighed.

"You pressed certain matters with me."

"Fine... if I tell you, will you tell me?"

"That sounds fair," Melanie turned slightly so she was facing the Doctor, waiting for him to speak.

"I was thinking about what was troubling you, actually, and then it reminded me of the reason why I don't talk about my family."

"What happened?"

"I as good as killed them..." he told her quietly.

"I don't believe that."

"But I did it, Melanie, I killed them!" there was such a look of pain on his face, that Melanie did not press for details. She looked in his eyes to see that they had aged so much as he recalled something that at first seemed like a distant memory, but in reality it was always there, just behind the forefront of his mind. Bringing it forward was one of the worst things that the Doctor had evidently have to do, besides the day that he did what he said he had done.

Melanie took his hand and held it in a comforting manor. The Doctor looked down at their now joined hands and gave a small, sad smile. Melanie glanced at his eyes again, and saw they had regained some form of youth, but the pain was still there, and there were tears in his eyes.

"You're older than you make out to be," she said gently.

"I'm older than I should be. A fair amount of my life I've been carrying that one horrible day on my shoulders, and it'll never go away. _Never_."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, the Doctor managing to recover a little before they continued their conversation.

"So... what happened to you then? Well, your family..." he said, quite sheepishly.

"It was almost like waking up one morning to find they had... gone... just gone. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I still hope they're alive."

"When did this happen?"

"Four years ago. It wasn't just my family... it was everyone I loved," Melanie looked out at the stars, a few tears falling down her face. "It's why I ran aw- it's why I travelled through Europe for a bit."

He ignored the fact she almost said 'ran away.' That was for another time.

"We're a right pair, aren't we?" the Doctor said, trying to lighten the mood and letting go of Melanie's hand so as to put his arm around her. "Sitting here in a blue box full of wonders and we're _crying_."

This made Melanie feel a little better, smiling at the Doctor's cheer, no matter if it was fake or not just to make her feel better.

"Whatever happened to the phrase _carpe noctem_?" he asked her.

"Carpe noctem?"

"I do believe it's Latin for _seize the night_."

"You're basically wondering why we're not seizing the night?"

"Exactly."

"It's because we're two troubled people with sparse amounts of hope."

"Yeah. I guess we are," the Doctor turned to look at her fondly. "Despite everything, I don't think I'd have it any other way."

"Really?"

"It makes us who we are."

"Very philosophical coming from the mad man with a box."

"Who's the one that wanted to come with that mad man?"

"Me... But you asked me to."

"Who's the mad one then?"

"Still you. Although I am glad I did come... there is only so much Jack you take. And I would have never been able to sit here, dangle my legs out into space and look at the stars... it's just beautiful. And quite cold..." Melanie lifted her legs up in front of her and showed the Doctor her bare feet.

"Ahh, right," the Doctor jumped up before helping Melanie up and closing the TARDIS doors. They went back over to the console, the Doctor holding Melanie's hand again.

"Do you think you'll be alright?" she asked him.

"As long you think you'll be alright, then yes, I should be."

"Good. I should be fine, even after that little spiel," Melanie then yawned. "I should probably get back to bed... night Doctor..."

As Melanie started making her way up the stairs to the many corridors, another question sprang into the Doctor's mind.

"Melanie?"

"Yes?" she stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face him.

"What were you doing down here in the first place?"

She thought about this for a moment.

"I actually wanted to tell you what you wanted to know. You didn't have to tell me about what you did. I think I was just feeling a little spiteful you had pressed me before."

"It's fine. I'm sorry for that, by the way."

"Don't worry..." Melanie smiled. "There's another reason too."

"Go on."

"Carpe noctem."

* * *

"Have you ever tried fish fingers and custard?" the Doctor sprang on Melanie as she walked into the kitchen for some food a few days later. She stopped and gave him an odd look.

"Umm... no... No, it's never even occurred to me to even _try_ fish fingers and custard."

"Close your eyes," the Doctor grinned.

"Oh no..." but Melanie did as he said.

"Open your mouth."

"You're sounding vaguely sexual and I'm not even on my knees."

The Doctor nearly dropped the plate with the food onto the floor, stuttering a little and going pink in the cheeks.

"I- erm. Well. Okay. What?"

"Oh god, I'm sorry!" Melanie clapped a hand to her forehead.

"Is there a story behind this?" he carried on walking towards her with the fish fingers and custard.

"Yes.. No! No... wait, no... yes... um. I think I was drunk. Not sure. Oh god."

"Story for the future?"

"Maybe."

"Okay, well, you can take your hand away from your forehead now..." the Doctor gently took her hand away from her forehead before picking up a fish finger which had been previously dipped in custard.

"Open your mouth. Except without the- yeah."

Melanie did as he said once more and he fed her a bit of a fish finger. She bit down and chewed it, her eyes opening in amazement.

"Sweet nectar of the gods, that's _good!_" she cried out after swallowing. The Doctor looked at her happily. "Can I ask why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why fish fingers and custard?"

"Ahh... well," he went and sat at the table, Melanie following. "I had just regenerated, crash landed in Amy's back garden and I had a bit of a craving – apples, yoghurt, beans, bacon, bread and butter... none of which I liked. Then I found fish fingers in the freezer and custard in the fridge. I found they went surprisingly well together!"

"Fair enough," Melanie took another one and ate it. "But what do you mean 'regenerated?'"

"I was wondering when you would ask that," he commented lightly. "The easiest way to explain it would be that this is my eleventh body."

"So... you can change your face and body?"

"Yes. I have to be in a very critically damaged state to do so."

"I see. I guess no demonstration then."

"No," the Doctor shook his head, chuckling a little bit.

"And you're not human either."

"Like you guessed from when we first met. I'm a Time Lord. Last one"

Melanie hesitated for a moment, now understanding what he had meant the previous night when he said that he had 'killed them all.'

"I heard Time Lords were a legend."

"And I heard Innocents were a legend as well."

"What?" Melanie looked confused. The Doctor's mouthed formed and 'o' shape.

"Do you really not know? That's what you are. An Innocent. Everyone who was just like you."

"I wasn't even told that."

"I would have assumed you were told, considering that you grew up with what was left of them. Oh dear. Another problematic thing," the Doctor groaned.

"Are you saying that all my family and friends and some of the others I grew up with... we were the last lot of Innocents? How?"

"No-one's sure. It's a mystery throughout the universe."

"A mystery that we could perhaps solve?" Melanie suggested. The Doctor looked at her with a slight sadness in his eyes.

"Maybe another time."

"Fair enough," Melanie shrugged. "So... what _can _we do, now that there's just two of us? And no married couples?"

"Hadn't thought about that quite yet," admitted the Doctor. "But it's nice to see someone eager, but not the... _nagging_ type."

"Does Amy nag then?"

"You wouldn't believe how long she kept going on and on about Rio..." the Doctor groaned.

"Did you ever take her to Rio?"

The Doctor was silent and Melanie chuckled.

"No wonder she kept _nagging_ you!"

"Hey! It's not _my_ fault there's usually something more interesting than boring Rio!"

"In what way is Rio boring?! Beaches, sun, carnivals and just general alcohol consumption..."

"If you can say 'general alcohol consumption' as casually as that, I say that Jack has definitely rubbed off on you," laughed the Doctor.

"Not really... well, a little bit," Melanie shifted in her seat uncomfortably. The fish fingers and custard lay forgotten now. "Four years in Europe, there were nights that I went a bit far."

"Would that stop you from going to Rio?" the Doctor raised his eyebrows at her, mischief in his eyes.

"Do I look like an idiot?"

The Doctor jumped up excitedly, grabbing Melanie's hand and pulled her as fast he possibly could towards the console room. He let go of her hand to bounce around the console and do the various things to set the TARDIS off to Rio.

"I'll get it right this time, hopefully... don't worry!" he shouted to Melanie as they held on to something so that they didn't end up falling.

"Good, because I'd hate to end up in the Arctic!" Melanie replied, just as loud.

A few moments later, the TARDIS stopped moving, and Melanie thought she could hear some form of music coming from outside. Very loud music. Very loud _samba_ music. Melanie's eyes lit up and she ran to the door, opening it and stepping out of the TARDIS excitedly.

The Doctor had landed them right in the middle of a summer carnival, at night, in Rio. This most definitely gave Melanie something to boast about to Amy.

There were a lot of people dancing – some people actually dancing the samba, and some people just dancing for the sake of having a good time, or were in fact because they were drunk. Melanie thought she spied a conga line going round the corner. It seemed that they had actually missed the carnival parade itself, but it didn't mean that it all had to stop.

Melanie looked at the Doctor standing next to her, and she took his hand, dragging him towards the people dancing the samba. The Doctor looked a little confused.

"What are you doing?"

"I met a Brazilian man in Portugal and he taught me how to samba."

"I don't dance," the Doctor lied. It was an obviously lie, because he was looking longingly at the people who were just randomly dancing with no fancy footwork needed.

"Yes you do. Amy let it slip over breakfast the other day. I believe she nick-named your dance the 'Drunk Giraffe,' is that correct?" Melanie replied, smirking.

"Shut up..." the Doctor pouted at her.

"I'll just teach you the _simple_ stuff – like this guy taught me."

"I don't want to..." he whined, sounding like a five-year-old child. Melanie rolled her eyes at him and began to slowly take him through the basic steps of the samba.

Apparently doing this slowly wasn't slow enough. The Doctor kept on whining about how he couldn't do it and they _somehow_ ended up getting closer and closer to the non-samba dancers. Eventually, Melanie gave up and watched as he did the 'Drunk Giraffe' and making a stupid bet with him that it would never catch on.

It managed to catch on among every dancing person there within the next ten minutes.

Because they had made a bet, Melanie now had to owe the Doctor something, but unfortunately they couldn't decide what. They were now sitting on the pavement, away from all the dancing people, but the music was still quite loud, but it wasn't so loud that they couldn't hear each other.

"You could owe me a bowl of fish custard," the Doctor suggested happily.

"No, because you are perfectly capable of doing that yourself," Melanie huffed slightly, and then looked up at the clear night sky, her head cocked to the sky. The stars were out and twinkling, but it was hard to see them because of the city lights. She lost all focus on what the Doctor was saying to her.

"...Swimming pool," the Doctor noticed that Melanie wasn't playing much attention to him and frowned. "Melanie, are you alright?"

"Hmm? Oh yes... sorry. Just thinking," she nodded to the sky and the Doctor followed her gaze. "Despite it being clear, you can hardly see the stars because of the city lights. I don't like it."

"That's always the case though, Melanie. Come on," he stood up and pulled up Melanie with him, beginning to walk. "I thought you were the one that wanted to come here!"

"Checkmate..."

"Besides the errr... interesting dance fest going on-"

"Which you started. They won't stop doing your dance-"

"I think we should maybe have a wander around Rio-"

"And quite frankly, it's a _stupid_ dance that makes me-"

"Because it might be quite nice and for once we might-"

"Question your sanity."

"Not get into trouble. What? _Question my sanity?_"

"It's a dance that got named the 'Drunk Giraffe' and half of Rio is doing the ridiculous dance," Melanie rolled her eyes at him. "Why would you want to wander around Rio? Going by what I've experienced, you get into trouble quite _badly_."

"We appear to have reached some form of mutual... thing."

"Thing?"

"Yes. Thing. Don't question it. Respect the thing."

"I'll be sure to respect the thing. The mutual thing, I might add," she winked at the Doctor and he smiled.

"Okay, so we've got a mutual thing and nothing to do. What now?"

"We could continue trying to figure out our little bet. I'm currently regretting that now."

"Ahh, so we're back onto this!" the Doctor replied cheerily. "You know, I was wondering-"

"Why Melanie decided to teach you how to samba? Because that is _exactly_ what I'm wondering," said a female voice from behind them.

The Doctor and Melanie turned around to see a woman with wild and curly dirty blonde hair, clad in a denim jacket with a tight shirt and jeans.

"And I'm also curious as to why you didn't teach _me_, Mel," she carried on, with a devious smile on her face.

"River, lovely to see you again," said the Doctor.

"You too, sweetie."

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**Even I'm unsure of how it ended up in Rio... o.O **

**Well, I hope you enjoyed it anyway!**

**Livvy :)**


	8. River Runs Wild

**Disclaimer: So I can't take rights over the Christmas Special Prequel...**

**Hello once again, everyone! It has been a while, but life has been a little hectic. I have my GCSE mocks in January and so I am working all the more harder in school, which sadly means less time for writing. Which is odd, because I keep getting distracted by the internet... shhh, don't tell anyone!**

**In a way, this chapter wrote itself. I did not mean for the events in this chapter to happen... I blame the Doctor for not stopping the two women sooner...**

**Enjoy!**

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The Doctor smiled a little when she called him 'sweetie.'

"As long as you don't have a gun on you this time..." he said to her.

"We're in Rio, why on earth would I have a gun?" River chuckled and then turned back to Melanie. "So, back to my original question, why did you teach him how to samba? Especially when you know that he _cannot_ dance to save a life."

Melanie opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again for she didn't know what to say. Then she did the exact same thing again. She was completely speechless – she didn't even know this woman, but this woman seemed to know her and that is exactly what threw her. Melanie turned to the Doctor, gesturing with her hands a lot at River in a vain attempt to get him to understand what she was trying to say.

When that didn't work, she projected a thought into his hand.

"_How does she know my name?"_

"Oh, right!" the Doctor looked back at River once more. "She's wondering how you know her name. I suppose you better explain it all."

"She's your friend, how about you explain?"

"But I _always_ have to explain. Shouldn't it be your turn?" the Doctor groaned. River laughed, since he (once again) sounded like a small child.

"Alright, alright, if it will stop you from moaning... gosh," she looked at Melanie. "He sounds like a five-year-old most of the time, doesn't he?"

Melanie nodded.

"Well... I better tell you then. I'm Doctor River Song, archaeologist, and I know you but you don't know me because you've not met me yet."

"I'm sorry, what?" Melanie managed to get out.

"Oh you're always having moments like that..." River gave Melanie a fond smile.

"Moments?" Melanie mouthed at the Doctor.

"I don't know," he mouthed back at her.

"Anyway, me and him... we're always meeting in the wrong order. But I guess that makes it all the more fun," River winked at the Doctor and he smirked.

"Well yes, I suppose it does make it all the more fun."

"Oh you _know_ it does," she flirted.

"Oh _stop it_."

"Make me."

"I-"

"Can we please go back to the TARDIS because you two _clearly_ need to get a room to sort out your unresolved sexual tension and quite frankly I don't want to watch," Melanie told them. The pair in question looked at her, a little bit shocked.

"Yes... alright... let's um, go back to the TARDIS," the Doctor promptly walked towards the blue box not too far from where they were standing, unlocked it, and went inside, the two women following him.

"So um... River," began Melanie after they went inside, now over her initial shock. "When was the first time we met?"

"Spoilers."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"If it's in our future, she won't say a word," the Doctor chimed in, typing something into the TARDIS computer.

"I see... so, whenever we ask her a question regarding something the most likely response is spoilers?"

"It really depends on what you ask, Mel," River replied.

"Don't call me 'Mel,'" Melanie sighed.

"I always call you Mel and you never turn a blind eye."

"Probably because I heard you call me 'Mel' _now_ so in my future when you first call me it I realise there's actually no hope in saying not to call me that because even if I did, you would just keep on calling me it anyway. Am I correct?"

"You just caught on quite fast," River said, dead pan. "Shame you rarely tend to do that..."

"What are you implying?" Melanie frowned.

"I'm not implying anything!"

"Well it certainly sounds like you are."

"Well sometimes you _need_ to be fast in more ways than one."

"I'm guessing you don't think I'm a fast thinker?"

"Ahh, we got there in the end!" River rolled her eyes and Melanie slowly began to get angry.

"Ever so slightly patronising..."

"You're one to talk about being _patronising._"

"You make me sound like a more troublesome person than I actually am!" Melanie shouted. It was at this point the Doctor thought he better try and intervene before it got progressively worse and River might accidentally say something regarding their future, or Melanie might say something she would regret later on.

"Look, you two, just..." he went to put his hands over their mouths but River slapped his hand away.

"If you attempt to put your hand over my mouth you'll be sorry. Hand over Melanie's mouth? She'll bite it very, _very_ hard," River gave the Doctor a stern look before turning back to Melanie. "I make you sound like a more troublesome person than you actually are, is because you _are_."

Melanie was silent for a moment before looking quite resigned.

"Yeah... you're probably right on that front," she said quietly. An awkward silence fell between the trio. "I'm gonna go and just... yeah..."

Melanie walked away from the Doctor and River, walking up the stairs to one of the many corridors of the TARDIS. As soon as she knew she was out of sight and ear shot of the console room, she began to ran, hoping for once place in particular to be on the TARDIS.

Sure enough, after a couple of minutes of running, she noticed an open door at the end of a corridor. Stopping running, Melanie walked towards it and went inside, smiling at what she saw.

"Hide me," she said to the TARDIS, as she closed the door to the music room, which is something that she hadn't expected to be there... maybe the TARDIS had created it just for her? Considering that was what she wanted to find. Or maybe the Doctor had some form of musical ability?

Upon surveying the messy room, she found that the Doctor had some form of musical ability, as there was a descant recorder in a glass case which had a sign on it saying _2__nd__ Doctor_ underneath it. Carefully treading about the room, Melanie found that it was quite extensive, and it contained about every possible musical instrument to ever exist. A large majority were obviously from Earth, and the rest of them were plain weird. To her, at least, for they wouldn't be weird to the planet they came from.

Eventually, Melanie came to a piano, and she went to sit at it. She didn't play anything in particular, and just simply pressed on random keys at the upper end of the piano, remembering how much she enjoyed the tinkling sound of the higher pitched notes. Whenever she played a high note on a piano, it always reminded her of when she was a child...

"_Melanie! Come on, mum said you have to practice piano," said a teenage boy, walking into a pale red bedroom. Lying in the middle of this pale red room, was a little girl of about six or seven, drawing on a piece of paper, her face screwed up in concentration. There were screwed up balls of paper next to her as well._

"_No," said Melanie, stubbornly._

"_Melanie..." the boy sighed._

"_I don't want to Jeremy," she sat up and frowned at her piece of paper. Jeremy sat down next to her and looked at the piece of paper she had been drawing on, and he picked it up. He wasn't entirely sure what she had meant to be drawing, for they looked like really oddly-shaped squares._

"_What have you been drawing?"_

"_Stars. But I can't do it," her bottom lip trembled and she started to cry. Jeremy put down the drawing and hugged his little sister, kissing the top of her forehead._

"_Come on Mel, don't cry..." he whispered._

"_I can't draw stars," Melanie sniffed. "And I'm not gonna play 'ano until I can."_

_Jeremy couldn't help but smile at his sister's inability to say the word 'piano' and then he came up with an idea._

"_How about this – you go play a bit of piano and then afterwards I'll help you draw stars, yeah?"_

_Melanie wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her hand and nodded, running off out of her room and down the stairs to the piano in living room. Jeremy picked up a couple of sheets of paper and a few colouring pens before heading down to the living room as well to join her. Melanie knew her brother was watching her play piano, so made an even better effort at playing it._

_She gave up after about twenty minutes, but that was good enough for her mother and brother. Melanie skipped over to Jeremy and bounced onto the sofa next to him. He was hiding something from her, as he was hunched over the arm rest, doing something._

"_Jeremy, what are you doing?" she asked him. Jeremy turned to her and smiled._

"_You'll see," he said._

"_Are you going to help me draw, now?"_

_Before Jeremy could answer, their mother came into the room._

"_You needed to be at Matt's by five, didn't you?" she said._

"_Yeah... I did," Jeremy looked at Melanie guiltily. "I'm sorry, I forgot I was going to Matt's house."_

"_Okay..." Melanie replied, looking as if she was about to cry again._

"_Mel..."_

_She didn't say anything to him, she just sat there, cross-legged looking down at her lap. Jeremy sighed and got up and left the room and heading out of the house so he could wait for his mother by the car._

"_Your dad is in the dining room working, alright?" she said to her daughter. Melanie nodded. Her mother kissed the top of her head. "I'll be back soon, darling."_

_With that, Melanie's mother also left the house, and everything was silent, besides the echoing of a pen scratching on paper as Melanie's father worked away. Once again, she wiped her eyes and then went and sat at the piano, playing _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_ on the upper end of it._

"When I saw you at that piano, I thought you might have played something a lot better than an old nursery rhyme."

Melanie jumped at the Doctor's voice and stopped playing.

"Um... I was... errr... never mind," she replied. The Doctor came and sat next to her on the quite long piano seat.

"Going by how distant you were, I would assume you were thinking about your family."

"Yeah. I was. You know... when I was little, I always had an _obsession_, if you will, with the stars. I just liked how they shined brightly. I thought they were pretty."

"_Were_ pretty? Don't you think that any more?"

"Well, I do, but... when we learned about them in school, all I could ever think about was that any star I might see is dead. Because we see them as they were years in the past, _thousands_ of years in the past! So for all we know... a lot of the stars—if not all of the stars—we see in the sky at night are probably already dead."

"Maybe you should stop thinking about it like that then. There has to be something else _good_ about the stars, shouldn't there?"

"I can tell you now I was always trying to draw them, and I couldn't. I was so upset I cried to my brother and he told me that after I practised piano he would help me."

"And did he?"

"No... he had to go off to a friend's house. I stayed up waiting for him to get back, but I fell asleep on the sofa. I woke up in my bed later that night to see him leaving my room, so I just assumed he had just come home and he had carried me up to bed. I went running after him and gave him the biggest hug ever," Melanie chuckled. "It was then he showed me that he had drawn me some – no, he had drawn me _lots_ of stars. He always sat with me when I did piano, but it had never occurred to me that he had actually been doing that for me whilst I did so. He even carried on doing it at his friend's house. Got some hell for it too."

"Your brother sounds like a nice guy..." the Doctor said softly.

"Yeah. He was. Really looked after me... god, I miss him."

"I imagine you would," the Doctor leaned towards her. "I miss my brother too," he whispered to her, before sitting back in his original position.

"You had a brother?"

"Yep! Course I did."

"You don't seem like the sort of person to have a brother. You seem more like the 'only child' type."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're very weird."

"Fair enough," the Doctor laughed a little, then he got serious again. "Did um... did your brother call you 'Mel?'"

"Yeah. He did."

"That would explain why you don't want to be called 'Mel.' It hurts, doesn't it?"

"Got it one..." Melanie sighed. "I wish River-"

"Look, I think you and River got off of the wrong foot, which is a bit of an understatement but please, _please_ try to be nice to her. I've told her to try and be nice to you as well."

"Why do you care if River and I get on or not?"

"Because um- I- well, it would be- umm..." the Doctor was spluttering out all sorts of things, none of which made any sense. Melanie smirked.

"Have you got a _thing_ for her?"

"A thing?" the Doctor looked confused.

"You know... a _thing..._"

The Doctor still looked confused.

"Do you like her?"

"...Yes..."

"I don't mean just as a friend, if that's what you're thinking."

"Oh right! Well then... I do like River, as more than a friend."

"How much?"

"A little."

"I now see why you River and I to get along."

The Doctor smiled at Melanie sheepishly and she just ruffled his hair.

"Hey!" he put his hair back into its original position and then looked at the piano. "Go on, play something."

"What do you want me to play?"

"Do you know of the Death Waltz?"

"I cannot play the Death Waltz," Melanie replied, exasperated. "The only bit I can play of that is the annoyingly catchy main tune. But I'm not playing it because it doesn't sound right without the rest, so pick something else, Bowtie."

"You're never letting that name go, are you?"

"Nope."

"Fine. Play the _Beetlejuice_ theme if you know it. Please say you do, I helped Danny Elfman come up with it!"

"You know Danny Elfman?"

"Of _course_ I know Danny Elfman."

"Then be thankful I know _Beetlejuice._"

The Doctor sat and watched as Melanie played the quite fast tune of _Beetlejuice_, surprised her fingers could stretch quite far, considering some parts of the song. He then watched her face, seeing how at some points it would screw up in concetration, as if trying to remember all the notes, and then at some parts totally relax... like she had complete confidence in what she was doing.

Just over two minutes later, she was done.

"I think I forgot how hard that was. I haven't played that one for a while."

"Well you did a brilliant job of it," the Doctor grinned at her and then got up, moving away from the piano.

"I take it you're off then. Back to River..." Melanie teased lightly. "Speaking of which, where is she?"

"Right here," River came round the corner, for once not doing her usual saucy smile. "Well done, by the way."

"Thanks..." Melanie mumbled. "I'm curious, how long have you been there?"

"Admittedly, the whole conversation."

At these words, the Doctor's ears went slightly pink and Melanie's expression turned stony as she then scowled at River, who sighed.

"Oh you're not going to get upset about that, are you?"

"Doctor, did you know she was there?" Melanie blatantly ignored River.

"No... I didn't," he replied, frowning slightly.

"Okay then... well, River, nice to know you're good at sneaking up on people," Melanie said quietly. "I'll see you later, Doctor," she quickly made her way out of the room.

There was a moment of silence between the Doctor and River, before the woman started typing out something on the vortex manipulator on her wrist.

"I suppose I should go," she said.

"You don't have to go, just because-"

"I'm not going because of the fact Melanie and I don't get on. I'm going because the first time I meet Melanie isn't too far off for the pair of you. Trust me, she isn't too best pleased to see me again..."

"Can't imagine why," the Doctor murmured, a little sarcastically.

"Look, sweetie, I should really warn you about something... she... she changes."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor narrowed his eyes.

"You're going to hate me for saying this, but-"

"Spoilers, yes. I know."

"It's going to be your job to look after her, and never mine. You have to make sure of that."

"Why?"

"You just do. It's important that you do."

The Doctor nodded, a little resigned.

"Bye, River."

"Bye for now, sweetie," she gave a flirtatious wink and was gone in a flash.

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**Yay for (slightly) ominous warnings from River! As I said, I didn't mean for River and Melanie to end up hating each other, it just happened! D:**

**Hey, I just met you  
And this is crazy  
But here's my fanfic  
Review it, maybe?**

**Livvy ;)**


	9. Dimensional Lesions

**Disclaimer: Just a couple of weeks until it's back.**

**Unfortunately I cannot explain my long absence from this story. Well, I can... I got really obsessed with True Blood (I finally watched season 1, 2, and 3 after watching seasons 4 and 5 when they aired), then I had exams and then there were True Blood reruns on TV so I watched seasons 1-5 for the second time and so therefore got wrapped up in a True Blood fic. Also lack of inspiration for this one. Oops. I'm sorry everyone. Forgive me?**

**Anyway, it was nice writing Doctor and Melanie again, they have an easier relationship to write than the one going on in my True Blood fic (that one is becoming blackmail enticed, um). So enjoy this chapter, I should have the next one up soonish... I'd like to add this next little adventure incorporates details from the Doctor Who Adventure Game: The Gunpowder Plot and a thing a friend and I did on tumblr once, ages ago. Enjoy!**

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"You okay after yesterday?" the Doctor asked Melanie as they sat in the library. Melanie was lounging on a sofa, reading some random book and the Doctor sat in an armchair opposite her. Neither of them had spoken for a few hours, so she jumped when the silence was broken.

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Are you lying?"

"Possibly," a hint of a smile crossed her face, causing the Doctor to chuckle a little.

"So half and half then?"

"Yes. I'll feel fine again later," Melanie shut the book and then carefully tossed it onto the little table by the sofa. She then lay back on the sofa and rested her hands behind her head, staring up to the ceiling. The Doctor cocked his head to the side as he watched her.

"You know... we could jet off to another planet. It might take your mind off of things."

"Tempting..." Melanie's gaze flickered to the Doctor, and she smirked.

"There's this planet, called Judisicym that has three suns called Jusim, Yerluh and Polif. Every two and an eighth centuries they align perfectly to create a spectacular light show that's better than the Northern lights," the Doctor had bounded over to Melanie and crouched next to her with excitement as he told her all of this. She then sat up with a lot more interest.

"Better than the Northern lights?"

"Oh, most definitely! If we can manage to land at the correct time to see it."

"Then let's go," Melanie hopped off the sofa, put on her jacket and allowed the Doctor to lead her to the console room. She hoped that this planet wouldn't hold any dangers, but considering he was only taking her there to see a light show, danger seemed like a low possibility.

The usual routine occurred in the console room, with the Doctor getting the correct co-ordinates and then starting up the TARDIS to take them to their new destination and then holding onto something for the bumpy ride. Except this time, the ride was a little bumpier than usual.

There was a strange grating sound, and the TARDIS was knocked to a ninety degree angle, leaving the Doctor sprawled across and holding onto the console itself, and Melanie clinging desperately to the railing, not wanting to fall down those few metres onto the wall. Sparks flew from various places, and the Doctor nearly got shocked.

The TARDIS eventually righted itself again, and he got off of the console to help Melanie. As she had been dangling from the railing when everything went back to normal, the force had made her stomach clash against the side of the floor, so all the air was knocked out of her. The Doctor managed to get her up onto the floor, where she lay coughing for a bit, before getting up.

"What just happened?!" she asked, concern crossing her face.

"I think we collided with another ship," the Doctor muttered. He went over to the scanner and started typing, when Melanie called him over to near the doors. "What- oh. That's new."

"What is it?" she peered at the bit of wall next to the door. There was essentially a hole in it, but the hole wasn't necessarily _there_, so to speak. The TARDIS wasn't damaged. The hole had a black edge around it and occasionally glowed purple. There seemed to be land on the other side. "Is it real?"

"Of course it is, Melanie, it's a dimensional lesion. It's a portal," the Doctor walked forward and stuck his hand through it, and nothing harmed him. "See?"

"How is it _here_ though?"

"It got here when we had that scrape with the other spaceship. We're going to need a dimensional equaliser to close it."

"Have you got one?"

"No, of course not, there's no such thing."

Melanie sighed in disbelief.

"Really? That's... so... _useful._"

"I'm the Doctor, I can make one. I just need a Kardanian vortex tuner and a Zardak holo-field trap," he mused quietly. "Would you mind fetching them from the drawing room for me? I need to stay here and ensure that this doesn't decide to fold in on itself or close with us inside it without the TARDIS..."

"Can that actually happen?" Melanie looked worried.

"I don't know and I don't want to find out. Now off you pop – oh! And that drawing room is also my _private study_ so don't touch anything."

"Where is it?"

"You know that door with the slime on it?"

"No. Wait... yes, I think I passed it the other day."

"It's the second door on the left down the corridor to the right of the slimy door."

"Got it. Another question... what do the... thingies look like?"

"One of them is long and silver with some black on it and the other one looks similar to one of those things."

"That's really helpful."

"Oh you know – what do kids play on? Computer box things?"

"Playstation?"

"It looks like a remote for that," the Doctor grinned at her and Melanie nodded.

"I'll be back soon," she said, heading off down the stairs and disappearing from sight.

The Doctor used the TARDIS scanner to keep an eye on the lesion whilst he waited for Melanie to come back, which she did about fifteen minutes with the correct devices for the Doctor to build the equaliser with. He managed to do that in quick time and when he closed the lesion, it created a large flash of light before it disappeared, leaving the TARDIS wall intact.

"See? No harm done."

"Good. So um, will any more of them pop up?"

"If the TARDIS and the ship we scraped aren't in the same location, then probably not. There's a chance more lesions could occur as a by-product of the TARDIS."

"But they're not a danger?"

"If we can close them properly, then no. Anyway, shall we carry on with our journey?" the Doctor smiled, restarting the TARDIS. Luckily for them, this time there were no clashes with another ship and no more lesions. The Doctor then gestured at the door, allowing Melanie to go and look first.

She tentatively walked up to the doors and opened them, her mouth dropping open in amazement as she stepped outside to look at the new planet. The sky was a pale green colour and she could spot the three suns coming ever closer together. The ground was hard, possibly made of concrete or some other form of material and a haunting sound filled the air, as if someone was singing. It felt as if it filled her head entirely. The people there were taller than an average person, were thinner and had pale blue skin. There was an ethereal grace to how they looked and walked.

Melanie walked further out of the TARDIS, and then felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Welcome to Judisicym, Melanie," said the Doctor quietly.

"It's wonderful," she replied. "That sound, it's beautiful..."

"That's the sound of them talking. Wait a moment, and the TARDIS translation matrix will kick in."

Soon the haunting sound of the native language became harsh words of the English language, but there was much more too. Melanie realised that it had really taken up so much space inside her head was because she had inadvertently let all their thoughts in, but they had been soft, like their native voice. As soon as the translation formed in her head, she staggered back against the Doctor, a hand on the side of her head as the words took place instead of the music.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor down at Melanie, worried.

"Nothing," she said. "I didn't realise I had let my guard down, and it's taking a bit of a time to get it back up," she then stood up straight again, and the Doctor took his hand from her shoulder.

"Be careful next time," he said. "Come on, the locals are getting ready for the light show down there," he pointed out past the concrete ground with led to a grassy hill, upon which what looked like the entire population of the city they were in were sitting. Melanie looked up behind her to a see a manor of buildings, both short and tall. They were all made of a shiny metal.

Facing forward again, Melanie followed the Doctor to the top of the grassy hill where they sat, watching the skies like everyone else. The Doctor then looked at his watch then at the sky.

"I'd say we have about less than five minutes. You see those two suns _just _on the right? The top one is Jusim and the bottom one is Polif, meaning that the other to the left is Yelurh."

"How do you know all this?" Melanie smiled.

"Because I'm clever," the Doctor replied, straightening his bow tie, causing Melanie to laugh a little bit.

"I should have guessed that was going to be the answer."

"Maybe you should have," he chuckled.

A flash of light in the sky brought them out of their conversation. The suns were aligned and multicoloured lights were dancing in the sky, but that wasn't all. On top of that, there was a blinding white light and everything around them started to shake.

"That's not supposed to happen," said the Doctor, pulling Melanie up with him. "Oh no..."

Another dimensional lesion had ripped open in the sky and a ship came through it. All around them, the Judisians started panicking and running all about the place. The Doctor kept hold of Melanie's hand so that they did not get separated.

Wordlessly, he tugged her along the top of the hill, running in the opposite direction to the TARDIS. The Doctor wasn't sure where he was supposed to be going, but eventually he pulled her along the concrete ground and they made their way to the buildings along with many other people. Everyone was frightened, as they did not know what was going on, but the Doctor was under the assumption that the peaceful planet may be under attack.

The ground finally stopped shaking as they made their way into one of the buildings, surrounded by scared Judisians. They appeared to be in some form of reception area, and they made their way to an empty corner where they could talk quietly without being overheard.

"Doctor-" Melanie began, but he cut her off.

"Melanie, I need to make something _very_ clear, which I should have done before," he became serious, his expression darkening.

"O-okay," she replied.

"It's important that you do _not_ run off, and that you do as I say from now on. There's only two of us, no Amy or Rory. We _cannot_ get separated, but if we do at any point, can I trust that you'll be fine?"

Without saying anything, Melanie unzipped her jacket and showed the Doctor one of the inside pockets, where the handle of a small hand gun could be seen protruding from. His eyes widened.

"You have a-"

Melanie clamped her hand over his mouth to stop him from yelling out that she had a gun in her pocket.

"Jack gave it to me, but I've never used it," she whispered, taking her hand away from the Doctor's mouth. "I don't know how to use it, actually, but at least I've got it."

"I hope you never have to use it, and I wish you didn't have it," the Doctor sighed, rubbing his jaw.

"I didn't want it either, but it could be useful."

"Don't say the word _useful_ about guns... anyway," he changed back to the original topic. "Melanie, did you understand what I said?"

"Yeah, but what if I was with you, became afraid and my first instinct was to run off?" she looked at him fearfully.

"Try not to run away, alright?" the Doctor gave Melanie a sad smile and she nodded. "Now we need to close that lesion and find out who came through it and why."

"You don't think it was the ship we hit, do you?"

"I'm not sure. I think the other ship we hit is here, but it must have crashed..."

"I didn't see a crashed space craft anywhere."

"Which means we probably hit it a few hundred years in the past and it's underground somewhere."

"Brilliant. Also, do you have the equaliser?"

"Ahh... no," the Doctor looked a little guilty.

"So we have to go back to the TARDIS?"

"Or one of us could. I could go back."

"But you said that-"

"If I went, you would be safe here. The Judisians are a peaceful race, they've never been at war with anyone before. They'll look after you, I'm sure."

"I don't want to be a sitting duck though," Melanie murmured. She gazed around the room filled with the tall race, when she picked up on something the Doctor hadn't. A few of the Judisians had glowing green eyes, while the rest had deep blue or brown ones. She frowned. "Doctor, why are their eyes green?"

"They shouldn't have green eyes, they should all be blue," replied the Doctor, also frowning and looking around the room. He picked out about twelve Judisians with the green eyes, and he felt disheartened. He faced Melanie once more and took her by the shoulders. "Listen, Melanie, you have to be _very _careful from now on. Do not trust the Judisians with the green eyes, it is absolutely imperative that you don't. In fact, don't go near them altogether."

Melanie nodded, a little confused. However before she could say anything, a Judisian approached them. It was a female, with light brown hair and blue eyes.

"Excuse me, strangers, who are you?" she asked, politely. She didn't seem suspicious of them at all, in fact she merely looked worried, possibly because they were off-worlders in an unfortunate situation.

"I'm John Smith and this is Melanie Striker," said the Doctor brightly.

"My name is Jaa Sham Horne," she replied. "I am terribly sorry of the circumstances that have occurred while you have been here. I have some people working to find out what is going on."

"Yes, I hoped you might be... Jaa Sham, would mind telling us whereabouts we are?"

"You are in Oynyena, the largest city of Judisicym," Jaa Sham tried not to looked confused as to how they did not know the name of the city they were in. "I am its leader."

"Oh right! Thank you. Well, if you do need any help whatsoever, we'd be glad to offer our services. Now, may I ask a small favour?"

"Why, of course."

"I need to go and get something from my... box. While I'm gone, I want to make sure Melanie is safe, so can you please look out for her, Jaa Sham?"

"I will be glad to," she smiled at the Doctor, who turned to Melanie.

"I'll be back soon, alright?" he then bent down to whisper something in her ear. "Use you head," with those final words, the Doctor began to make his way towards the doors in order to get the dimensional equaliser.

"_The ones with the green eyes aren't Judisians,"_ the Doctor's thoughts made their way into Melanie's mind.

* * *

**Cookies to those who can figure out what the green-eyed Jusidians actually are.**

**A little review would be nice :)**

**Livvy x**


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